I made a bunch of these photo tile magnets for Christmas gifts. They are small at about two inches square, but have a nice weight to them.
I started with these tile magnets I picked up for about 25 cents a two-pack at after-Christmas clearance last year. They were fine as-is, but to me they were more valuable as supplies. You can’t even buy raw materials for that price.
I resized some photos of Elise to the same dimensions as the magnets and printed them out on photo paper. Before cutting the photos out, I sprayed the sheet of paper with a water-resistant clear sealer (so the ink wouldn’t run.)
After the clear coat was dry, I cut out the photos and adhered them to the tiles with Mod Podge. Once they were dry, I sealed them with a top coat of Mod Podge.
I think this one of my brother and Elise is my favorite. The square shape suits the composition of the photo really well.
I had to re-do a couple of the magnets because I used too much Mod Podge when gluing down the photos. It soaked through the paper from the backside and made the ink run. I was able to rip off the photo pretty easily and salvage the tiles though.
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This is part of my Handmade Gift Challenge.
What did you use as the water-resistant clear sealer? Where can you buy that and the tile magnets from and at what cost? Beautiful idea by the way! (:
I used a clear spray sealer from Hobby Lobby (their house brand, I think). There are probably more out there. Just make sure it says on the can if it’s water resistant or not.
As I mentioned in the post above, the magnets were a clearance find. I got them at Michael’s in their dollar bins, but it was almost a year and a half ago. You could substitute tiles from Home Depot/Lowe’s and add strong magnets to the back. That would probably work well!