Doodle Magnets – How to & advice

At the dollar store, they had art kits for 1.49. It came with 1 inch square tiles, paint, a brush, and magnets. Rather than use the paints, I colored /doodled on them with sharpie marker and baked at 400F for 20 minutes...add a magnet... instant customise

Sometimes, being a Jill of all Trades (or crafts in my case) makes for a bit of fun when shopping. I was at the Euro store near where I live recently buying the standard toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, batteries and the like when I happened to head down the crafts aisle. Generally speaking, the crafts in the row are geared toward children, and sometimes you’ll get yarn or a bit of something that is for card making or can be used for something else. It’s usually inexpensive, and an almost never-ending supply of inspiration for me. Near Christmas, I saw a set of do it yourself magnets in a packet which got my wheels turning.

Untitled

The craft set contained 5 unfinished ceramic tiles, a few acrylic pots of paint, self adhesive magnets, and a paintbrush – for 1.50 Euro. I went a bit mad and bought several packages, because I thought that I wouldn’t paint them – I would do permanent marker doodle crafts instead.

Untitled

What are permanent marker doodle crafts you ask? Well, basically, you get sharpie brand markers (or other permanent markers) that you can draw with. You’ll need some ceramics (eg. A Mug, Tiles, ceramic box, etc.) and you doodle on them with the markers.

Untitled

Then, you bake them in the oven at 350 F for 15-30 minutes to set the marker so it can’t be washed off. I’d seen some interesting ideas for this on Pintrest, and had been keeping my eyes peeled for something suitable to try this on. For me, I thought the magnetic tiles were going to be perfect as they were inexpensive and small enough I could try all the different colors / designs I had in mind.

Once I got home, I started out with my off brand permanent markers (again 1.50 Euro at the Euro store) and set to work. A few of my designs:

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

I really liked how bright and colorful they were, and was rather encouraged as I put them in the oven. I checked them at 15 minutes, and they weren’t even warm yet, so I put them on for 15 minutes more. Mistake.

You see, once the ceramic starts getting hot, the marker sets very quickly. And little did I know – the colors also change with the addition of heat. The black stays the same, but the Red turns pink or brown; the Bright Green turned yellow, the Violet went pale blue, and yellow? Well it turned orange. And they weren’t bright anymore. So, while I liked how they turned out – I ended up going back and re-coloring where I could and re-heating them a second time.

I realize now two things that would have made it easier –

a) You have to watch the heating process very closely – once they start to discolor they need to come out of the oven – immediately.
b) Rather than worrying about watching like a hawk – it may be best to use only black and the plain ceramic color to make the designs. I liked the addition of color in mine – but in the end, they would have been just as striking had they only been black / white.

After heating and befpre a bit of recolor/second baking you can really see the discoloration on the middle two:

Untitled

What did they look like when they were done? Not bad – just not what I expected. And they still made great Christmas gifts for my homemade holidays. 2 per person – so out of 4 yellow packages; I got 10 unique Christmas gifts. It ended up being 0.75 Euro per gift – including the cost of the markers (which I still have plenty of use out of). Handmade AND inexpensive. Who can argue with that ?!?


Share

Mugged

Went Christmas shopping today for a white elephant gift for a team party coming up on Thursday. Saw 3 cool mugs – that I had to share – because they gave me a laugh.

Untitled

Star Mug. When cold it displays black with white stars. Add a hot drink… And a star map magically appears.

Untitled

Humorous hair mug -where was this for movember?!?

Untitled

Last one from the shop – Metal look beer keg mug. Just what you need for Mondays in the office?!?

Share

12 weeks ’till Santa Comes

Rudolf packages after snow

Can you believe it!?! It is only 12 weeks until Santa comes and the rush is on. I’ve set a goal for myself that I will try to hand make as many of my gifts as possible. Not only may it be less expensive, and I get to use some of my talents, but it also will be more customizable to each person that I want to give a gift.

So, what am I doing?

Crochet – scarves, bracelets, etc.
Jewelry – stringing some beads into necklaces
Sewing – making tea towel aprons, pillows, etc.
Paper crafts – think stationary, cards, etc.
Pottery / ceramics – painting some fun pieces of pottery to give as gifts

In the last couple of months, I’ve had a class in sewing for a machine and learned to use a sewing machine. Over the weekend, I found a place to let me use the pottery wheel and also to paint some pre-formed ceramics for a reasonable price. They’ll fire it and glaze it, and after a couple of weeks, you get it back – perfect for gift giving and/or keeping for myself.

Luckily my Christmas gift list isn’t too long, and in 12 weeks, theoretically, if I plan everything right, I should have enough time to complete what I want to.

I want to point a few great sites that I’m using for inspiration –

Crochet me – Fabulous site with lots of free and paid crochet patterns. They have a great magazine for crochet called Interweave crochet that I’m subscribed to and have learned some new stitches from.

Ravelry – They’re a knitting and crochet community and they have several project ideas and free patterns that are available for everything from hats and scarves to afghans, sweaters, and more.

Craftsy – what can I say other than I love this site. I’m not a “single item” crafter. I’m more of a Jill-of-all-trades where I find that one piece of something can influence another of the many projects that I have going or would like to try. This site has a little bit of the crochet/knitting, but also has sewing projects, paper crafts, jewelry, and so on.

Crafts Beautiful – this is a magazine that gives away free crafting items (who doesn’t love that) once a month. They have a little bit of everything – and while I don’t always like everything, it really gets my creative juices flowing. The latest magazine that I bought had a bunch of Christmas themed papers – perfect for the holiday cards.

Pinterest – photos galore. Everything from beginning to end from colors to jokes, to patterns that are linked from what others have done.

CreateForLess – repository for lots of craft supplies that are reasonably priced. They also have craft ideas, and they tend to keep me within budget on whatever I want.

Wish me luck, and expect more posts with some of the finished projects coming soon.

Share