Fun and Easy Fridge Magnet Project

I don’t know about you, but I fight a constant battle over the contents of my fridge. Not the interior contents; I’ve pretty much given up that battle. I’m talking about the landslide of papers, photos, coupons, and reminders that litter the front of the fridge. 

I keep looking at cute message board crafts online and thinking if I just had the right board I could revolutionize our “system” (my euphemism for our mess), but deep down I know that I will never be able to switch to a different way of keeping track of our lives. I’m a visual person, and if it’s not right in front of me, it doesn’t exist in my world. (Like the doctor’s appointment and school deadline that mysteriously slipped by me this week!) So if it’s something that needs to be dealt with, looked at, or remembered in any way, it gets plopped on the fridge. And now that I have two little creative people in my life, they make their own contributions to the chaos (in more ways than just the fridge, believe me!).

So, bearing my own weaknesses in mind, and also my semi-compulsive need to live in an organized space, I set out to improve the situation in a way that will still work for me. What I came up with is a fun and easy little magnet craft that anyone can do to spiff up their own fridge.

All you need is a packet of Photo Corners, found in the scrapbooking aisle of any craft store, and a few self-adhesive magnetic strips. (I found these at Walmart.) Here is the easy part:

1. Separate one of the magnetic strips from the sheet.
2. Measure (I just eyeballed it) the photo corners against the strip, to see how big to cut your pieces.
3. Cut the strip in triangles. One diagonal cut, followed by a straight cut, and so on.
4. Remove the adhesive backing and stick the magnet to the back of a photo corner.
5. Repeat till you have enough corners to put 2-4 on each picture/ paper/ coupon. (Smaller pieces only need two corners, but anything larger than a 4×6 photo probably needs four.

Pictures take on a pretty vintage feel with photo corners

Now the hard part: arranging all your stuff! I made mine into a loose collage so that I can move and add stuff whenever I need to. Indeed, in the two days since I started this project, I’ve already changed out four pieces. Life moves fast!

See the love note from my 6-year-old?

My fridge is one of the first things I see when I come into the house, so now instead of accosting me with a huge messy to-do list, it welcomes me with a less chaotic, and prettier, collage of our life. It may be a small thing, but every little bit helps, when you’re trying to hang on to your sanity!

The great thing about these magnetic photo corners is that they just slip on and off your photos, so they’re a great alternative to pushpins, if you have a metal surface to use them on. They’re so quick, easy, and inexpensive to make, and would make a cute little housewarming or hostess gift, if you put a bunch in a dressed up mason jar.

Happy organizing! I’d love to hear from you if this sparks an idea…