Bubble Word Magnets

Long time no tutorial. :D

I love magnets. I think these ones look a little more modern than the bottlecap ones. They are also super easy to make. Be sure to work in a well ventilated area, as the glue for adhering the magnets has quite strong fumes.

You will need:

- Glass pebbles

(from the floral section of the craft store)

- Clear adhesive such as Tombo, Diamond Glaze or Glossy Accents

- Scrap paper

- Circle punch (optional)

-Scissors or file

- Round magnets (strong earth magnets are best)

- Epoxy or other strong adhesive for the magnet.

First, let's start with the base.

Take your circle punch (reccomended if it is bigger than your pebble) and punch out a circle of paper.

The point is to make a mini collage. With this set, I went super simple and just went with paper and a journaling strip. You can make a more fancy collage, but try to keep it as flat as possible. If you want an image with lots of layers or even dimension, I would reccomend scanning your collage and printing or photocopying it so you have a single layer of paper to work with.

After I punched my circle, I went into my word processing program, picked a font and a size and began to type words/phrases that I liked.

I printed onto regular cardstock and then cut out the individual phrases.

I used my trusty gluestick to adhere the journaling strip.

After that it's time to grab your pebbles. Look for ones that have no/few air bubbles or flaws and no grit trapped in the glass.

Take your clear liquid adhesive (in my example I use Tombo, but all of the ones I have listed work just fine) and, holding your pebble in your hand, schmear glue across the surface. Try to coat all of the pebble with your adhesive.

Flip the pebble over and position your collage underneath. It is okay if you get the glue on the collage. Press down with your finger to eliminate air bubbles and to spread the glue evenly across the pebble.

Once your clear adhesive is dry, take your scissors and just cut the excess paper away from the pebble. Don't worry about being fancy, who looks at the back of a magnet?

Note: if you want the backs to look fancy, you should go ahead and use a file to file the excess paper away. But it takes way longer. I'm just saying....

After that, place a dollop of strong adhesive on the back of the paper, in the center-ish of the pebble. Don't worry about being exact.

Okay, now, if you want this to be waterproof, or are going to make a necklace or coaster or mosaic or some such, go ahead and seal the entire back of the collage with your epoxy. I reccomend the E6000 clear. It is super stinky, but awesome. If you are just going with the magnet plan, you can skip that part.

Time to grab your magnet. Go ahead and press the magnet into the adhesive. I like to swirl mine around a little, to help center it, and also make sure the whole magnet gets adhesive on it. And now, the hardest part.... waiting for your glue to dry... again.

Here is a try of finished pebbles, awaiting their future home on some magnetic surface.

Let's see what you come up with. If you end up using this tutorial, link back here. I would love to see your creations.

Happy Crafting!