Creating Through Life: Gleaming Glass Magnets, Thumb Tacks and More

This post is all about how to turn those glass stones that fill vases into magnets and more. It's super easy and fun! I discovered this technique when staying with the Cookie Monster's grandmother a while back. On her fridge were the most adorable magnets one of which really caught my eye. A little orange fish trapped beneath a glass gem. Because of the bubbles that naturally occur in the glass it was as if this fish was really under water. She told me that she painted the fish on a tiny piece of paper, then glued it to the back of a glass stone and attached a magnet. She was kind enough to let me have it! I was so excited to take that little fish home and try making some magnets myself.

I ended up making many different kinds of magnets to decorate my fridge with. Then I made some for school, the students and teachers loved them. I decided they could be more than magnets though. I made a giant Homeworkopoly game to motivate my students to bring in their homework. Since each student in my classroom was assigned a number I printed out numbers and and attached them to the glass stones. Instead of attaching them to magnets I glued them to thumb tacks. They made great game pieces! The picture below is the only picture I have, I took it on my cell phone. You can see the little game pieces lined up on the side, this was before we started the game.

Another thing I did was label their mailboxes with the glass stones and I used numbers again. That way students know which mailbox is theirs without their name being written on it. I don't like personalizing everything with students names because then I just have to change it every single year to the new students' names.

So if you're still wondering how to make these glass gems it's super easy! The only thing limiting you is your imagination.

The first thing you're going to need to do is decide what kind of design you want to do. You can print out the alphabet or numbers, you can draw or paint a design. Scrapbook paper works great too. One thing to keep in mind is that the glass will MAGNIFY your design a little bit.

You will need to get a bag of glass stones. I've found them at the Dollar Tree before and they can also be found at pretty much any craft store. You're also going to need a paint brush, scissors, Mod Podge and magnets or thumb tacks or anything else you can think of to use your glass stone for.

These glass stones can be found in many different sizes and colors. Use strong magnets that way they will stick to any surface.

Step #1 Cut out your design in the shape of a circle no bigger than your glass stone.

Step #2 Paint a thin coat of Mod Podge on the flat side of the stone and place the design directly onto the glue so that the blank side is face up and the design shows through the front. Then set it aside to dry for a couple minutes.

Step #3 Paint another coat of Mod Podge over top of the paper and attach magnet. If you're doing many of these make sure not to set them too close together while they dry or the magnets will pull each other off. Let them dry completely.

In an upcoming post I'll share with you another project I used these number magnets for so stayed tuned. As always I would love to hear from you. Let me know if you decide to try this project or maybe you already have.