How to Make Your Own Fridge Magnets

Have you ever looked at your increasing file of pictures and wondered what to do with them? No doubt you have considered making your own greeting cards - I certainly have. I've also produced for family and friends my own desk calendars and recently I began looking at producing my own fridge magnets after my wife had taken some photographs of her grandson and wanted a souvenir of a special occasion to give to his parents.

I started exploring the fridge magnet project by the simple expedient of looking at my own fridge door where I had collected a variety of magnets over many years. There were all sorts; some with just names and addresses, some with emergency phone numbers, some with calendars, some with pictures, some with information and others that were simply souvenirs. There was even one with a picture embedded in Perspex from the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in the Lake District in England.

There were also differences in how the printed side was attached to the magnet; some had a magnet that covered the whole back while others used a small piece of magnetic strip. And, to add to the differences, some were laminated.

My next step was to investigate some of the kits available for producing fridge magnets. I ended up with one that included enough material to produce 20 magnets. It included two inkjet printable plastic label sheets and two die cut magnetic material sheets. It also had a template to enable my images to be placed in the correct position for the individual labels.

I began by scanning the template sheet and loading it into my desk top publishing program (I use InDesign but any similar program will do). I then prepared the images and resized them to 84x46mm - the template rectangle is 90x52mm and the manufacturer recommends that you allow 3mm all round the image for ease of lining up. The pictures were then placed in the rectangles on the template and words added. I printed the result out on to plain paper so that I could ensure that everything was in its right place before printing on to the special plastic label sheet.

Once the images had been printed on to the plastic labels, they have to be lifted from the backing sheet and stuck to the magnetic material. The plastic labels have a self-adhesive backing and the easiest way I found of attaching them to the magnetic material was to insert a piece of non-stick paper over the magnetic material so that I could just attach the top of the image label firmly in its correct position. Then I could ease the non-stick paper down the label and gradually press the label to the magnetic material. In this way, I managed to get most of the labels straight and without bubbles. The non-stick paper I used was a sheet that had been a backing sheet to some labels.

I wanted to see if I could laminate the completed fridge magnets so an A4 sheet of labels was fed through my laminating machine. It was a mixed result. The laminate took in most cases on the plastic labels but, after I had trimmed the magnets, the laminate on the magnetic side peeled off. That was fine in some instances but in others it led to the laminate coming off the front of the magnet as well. However, the unlaminated magnets looked good but I did find that having followed the instructions and produced images that were smaller than the backing, I didn't like the amount of white border and preferred to trim the final magnet to the size of the image. This I did with a sharp craft knife. This is, of course, a personal preference and, on reflection, I think a narrow white border would look good.

I also decided to try a different approach to producing laminated fridge magnets without using one of the fridge magnet kits. Once again, I set up a template in my desk top publishing program with the intention of laminating the finished magnets in some business card size laminating pouches that I had. I decided on an image size of 55x90mm and set up the template accordingly. Once printed, I cut the individual images and laminated them in the business card pouches. As this was an experiment, I also printed a second sheet which was laminated in an A4 pouch and then cut into individual images. The business card pouches worked best as they totally enclosed the images. Occasionally, and it was only occasionally, the guillotined laminated versions showed signs of delaminating.

I had bought a roll of self-adhesive magnetic material from a craft shop and stuck a small piece of this to the back of each image before putting them on the filing cabinet in my office. They looked great but the following morning, all but one of the pictures were on the floor with the magnetic strip still on the filing drawer.

Then I remembered the rubber cement that I use to mount photographs for framing. It is a very versatile means of pasting photographs as, if only one surface is pasted it is easy to remove the photo from its backing while if both surfaces are pasted and the cement is allowed to dry before being joined together, a permanent bond is achieved.

And, using the latter method, I was able to make a firm attachment of the magnetic strip to the laminated fridge magnet and hand my wife the souvenir fridge magnet she had asked for.

When making fridge magnets, consider producing an oversize one, say about the size of a postcard, that includes your picture and, beneath it, a calendar for the year - it is possible to find programs that produce calendars that you can use. Have a look on the internet.

David Bigwood is an Australian based writer and photographer who sells his words and pictures regularly. His website is http://www.bigwoodpublishing.com where you will find some of his published articles and products such as postcards and bookmarks for sale.

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