Save the Date Magnets...

I gave you the sneak peek at my Save the Date magnets the other day, so I figured that I could share a little DIY Instructions for those that might be interested. These were SUPER easy to make and they turned out REALLY well!

The first thing that I did was come up with the concept. I knew that I wanted to do either a card or postcard and since I was still working that part of the STD up, I moved on to the magnets. I knew that I wanted to incorporate a magnet into the STD somehow, but didn’t want the whole thing to be a magnet. I came up with the idea of just attaching the magent to the STD via glue strips (like the ones that you see gift cards attached to the little envelope with).

So the first thing that I did was the mock design in Photoshop. Since I knew that I didn’t want the whole thing to be a magnet, I set the size for my new file around 2x3 inches (the size of a standard business card). Then I played around with fonts until I came up with the one that I loved:
Ignore the typo on October – I fixed that before the final draft, but can’t find it at the moment…

Once I had that done and was satisfied with it (minus the typo!) I saved it as a pdf file and imported it into Word. From Word, I was able to copy the image onto a standard size of paper 8 times. This was important to me, and I had to play around with the margins a bit to make them all fit, but I wanted to get the most out of the paper that I was purchasing.

Since the design was fairly simplistic on the magnet, I wanted a little punch on the paper! I don’t think that I’m a paper “snob” but I did want to see it in person and touch and feel it before buying it…so I went to my favorite local scrapbooking store, Memory Depot. I had looked online at some paper sources, but really needed to see it…

I found just what I was looking for there. A nice, plain cream paper that was pearlized, so that there was some gleam to it in just the right light. I spoke with the salesperson about printing onto the paper and she said that it shouldn’t be a problem. Just in case, I only bought one sheet as a trial, knowing that if it worked she had plenty more. While there, I also picked up some textured Bazzill black cardstock (my favorite cardstock) to use as a mounting for the design.

I tested my sheet of paper back at home and it printed beautifully. One more trip back to Memory Depot and I had the paper that I needed to complete the project for a mere $13! Score!

I found the magnets that I needed for the project here at a very reasonable price, and they came in the mail within three days. Once I had all of the materials needed, the rest was pretty simple.

I printed out the pages of images on the pearly paper and then used a straight edge blade cutter (I own this one from Creative Memories) to cut the individual images out, and then used my Personal Trimmer (also from Creative Memories) to do the more detailed size cropping on the images. Once I had the first one sized down, the rest were all easy to follow the same final size cuts. After that, I took my large blade cutter again and cut the cardstock into strips the width that I wanted to frame out the STD image in. once again, once I figured out the first one, the rest cut smoothly. From there, I used my PT again to make the smaller cuts and followed the sizing of the first one on that also.

I used Creative Memories double-sided scrapbooking tape to attach the STD image to the cardstock, being sure to put some tape on all four corners. Once I finished those, I was ready to attach the magnets.

I had purchased business card sized magnets that already came with adhesive on one side, to make the whole process smoother. The only surprise that I got was when I went to attach the first magnet and realized that I had never compared the size of the full STD (with the mounting on it) to the size of the magnet. There was a little more magnet than STD, but it was no problem for my personal trimmer (that sounds SO funny to say!) to take a ¼” off of the magnets. I didn’t have to actually take off that much, but I wanted to be sure that the cardstock hung over each side of the magnet. Then it was just a matter of peeling off the paper covering the adhesive and centering the STD on the magnet. Press hard, and viola – you have a magnet STD! Little CC even got in on the action and she became my official paper peeler for the magnets. She went a little faster that I could center and press, but we found a rhythm that worked for us…a nice little mother/daughter project.

Here’s a breakdown:

Paper (from Memory Depot) – $13.29

Magnets (from ) – $20.95

Glue Strips (from Michael’s) - $5.40 (I haven’t used these yet)

Total cost - $39.64 for 80 magnets - they come out to $.495/a piece – a VERY good deal!
The tape and cutters I already owned, so there was no extra expense for me on that one…
A cheap and really cute project! I apologize for the lack of step-by-step pictures, but since it was pretty self-explanatory, I didn’t think to take them. As soon as the STD postcards get here, I’ll show them off and show the final product with the magnets attached!

Did anyone else have a DIY project that ran smooth with no major bumps in the road? This was is hopefully the first of many for me… J