Materials:
These are an easy, cheap, and fun craft. They've been done to death in forums like glitter and craftgrrl. The best tutorial I've found is on Not Martha. However, in an effort for a complete DIY section, I figured I'd throw these in. I made a bunch of them for Christmas. I also made some really cool pendants using larger marbles, but I didn't get photos. Be creative. Don't just stop with magnets. Figure out other uses for these suckers to keep them fresh and interesting.
I started out by browsing through my old magazines, armed with a marble. When I found images I liked, I slid the marble around on the paper until I found a pleasing placement. This is a really fun part of the project, because the marble slightly magnifies and distorts the image. Moving a marble around on a page will show you things that you didn't think would be interesting. Also, off-center placement can sometimes be more interesting than something that's centered. Ads are often really good source material. When I found images I liked, I punched them out with a 1/2 inch craft punch.
Using your utensil (I used a popcicle stick), spread a small bead of adhesive on your marble. Squish the magazine cutout onto it so that the image can be seen through the bubbled side of the marble. Press firmly onto some scrap paper (in case some of your adhesive squishes out) and watch all of the air bubbles run for the hills.
Let them dry. No, really, let them dry. If you don't, when you glue the magnets on things'll slide all over the place. Trust me on this one. Once your marbles with images are all dry, get your glue utensil out again and spread a small amount on the flat back of a newly adorned marble. Place a marble on it and squish it like above, to ensure a good bond.
Allow your marbles to dry magnet side down for a day. I'm not sure if you can use them before that, because I made mine way ahead of time and then they just sat on the coffee table for about a week, much to Zach's dismay. If you dry the marbles magnet side up (as I did with a few of them, in a fit of insanity), the magnet will slide off the marble a bit and dry that way, and it'll be a very ugly situation.
That's all there is to marble magnets. A lot of people like to use salvaged Altoid tins or other cute little metal containers to make a nice gift presentation. A few words of warning: Glass marbles are heavy. Make sure that the magnets you get are strong enough to hold them up. Your magnet should only be slightly smaller than your marble. With large marbles, you'll need BIG FAT MAGNETS or they'll fall off the fridge. If you're using exceptionally thin source material for the images, you may want to glue a white piece of paper in between the magazined-marble and the magnet, to make sure no discolouration occurs. I've never had to do this. I found that my circular punch was a little bit bigger than the base of many of my marbles. I ended up trimming the excess with a craft blade before giving them as gifts. One problem with the glass floral marbles is that they can sometimes have bubbles in them, or scratches on the flat bit which will mar the image. I have heaps of unusable marbles left over and I'll need to find a different project for them where the scratches won't matter. Megan at Not Martha recommends using acrylic cabochons and the next time I do this project, I'll definitely look into them. They're scratch-free, exactly the same size, perfectly round, and lighter than glass.
Total time spent: approximately two hours
US Dollars spent: approximately ten
Please note: Unless otherwise noted, all of these instructions, photographs, and ideas are mine. Please give me credit (and send me pictures!) if you work off of these designs. The sale of any items based on these designs is prohibited.
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