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Hoping to add lots more to the collections, since these ones are all created using mostly the same design. Although I did add this extra funny one:

It’s funny because it’s so true!

Speaking of stay-at-home moms, I’m about to become a (very) part-time one again… the school year is about to start up and with Avery going into grade 1 and being at school for a full day, we haven’t signed him up for an after-school program or daycare (unfortunately the list at his current beloved daycare is 5 years for the After School program!!!). So looks like I’ll be yet again trekking to his bus stop daily (in my wheelchair) and trying to occupy him for a couple hours until my DH gets home from work. Here’s hoping it goes OK! I’m looking forward to spending time with my little guy (and young gal, who will be joining us from her new middle school’s later day schedule a little while after we get home) but also terrified about having the kids on my own again. Also sad that it will probably mean giving up the newest medication I’d started – it had taken my pain down just a notch but also makes me too groggy to be an alert (and safe) parent.

For now though, we’re just getting through the last little bit of summer holidays! Wow the summer has gone by fast, eh? Stay tuned for new Back to School blinkies and check out last year’s Back to School Big Blinkies to get a head start (or to the head of the class?).

I decided to first try the craft at one of my Scrapbooking Crops, and it was very fun to create them! They turned out really well!

I created the ones with the family photos inside, and since my friend didn’t have photos with her, I came up with the idea of just stamping little images on scrapbook papers – so cute!

The only thing I was not too too happy with for these batches of magnets was that I used magnets (bought at Michaels) that were not all that strong. So they make great decorations on a fridge or board, but they can hardly hold anything up. So I bought a set of super-strong magnets (purchased online) to try again…

… and this batch was better able to hold lots of paper! I had to be very careful with the magnets actually because they were SO strong they could pull each other off the backs of newly-drying marble magnets (yep, learned that the hard way and wrecked one!). I gave this set (in the tin) to my son’s daycare on his last day there as a thank-you gift. It was a big hit!

Here’s what all you need if you’d like to make these yourself:

* 1/2″ magnets (I recommend super-strong)
* 1/2″ punch
* clear stones with flat bottoms
* clear-drying glue (silicon glue or podge)
* white cardstock
* photos with details or faces in a small area
* OR decorative scrapbook papers and tiny stamps

Instructions:

1. Prep your layers: punch white cardstock in 1/2″ circles. Punch photos or papers in 1/2″ circles OR stamp images on papers and punch them out.
2. Prep your magnets: pull apart and line up (away from each other!) – we used a metal ruler to keep them separated. Optional: test polarities and plan to place magnets so that the side of the magnet facing outwards when completed will repel.
3. Prep your surface: put down some paper or spare cardboard.
4. Prep your glue: open up your podge and get a brush or take off the cap of your silicon glue.
5. Prep your marbles: pick out stones that are nice and round and are very clear in the middle with limited occlusions.
6. Smear some glue on your cardstock circles, place your photos (or papers) on top. Let this dry a little (it works well to do the craft in an assembly-line way: glue all the photos, then all the marbles, then all the magnets – by the time you’ve reached the last magnet in one step, the first one is ready for the next step!).
7. Smear some glue on the photos (or papers) and place the clear marbles on top. Press down to get the bubbles out. Try to center the image so that you can see it clearly. Let this dry a little longer.
8. Flip over the magnets and smear some glue on the cardstock backing. Place the magnets onto them (centered). Don’t forget about your polarities if you are doing that optional step!
9. Let everything dry completely before trying to stick them to anything (I’d recommend a day or at least overnight).
10. Place your magnets on the fridge, magnet board, or in a metal tin and enjoy!

This was definitely a very fun craft and I’m sure to be creating more – keeping some clear stones tucked away for creating Christmas gifts! Thank you Ashley for posting the link & thank you “not Martha” for the great tutorial! If anyone creates their own magnets I would love to see how they turned out so please post a comment!

* In case you haven’t already heard, the YM Blogs over at (my very own) YoungMommies.com have a FABULOUS contest up right now! All young moms (by our definition, moms who had their first child before age 30) are eligible to win one of two prizes – a book giveaway and a Summer Fun pack. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment! The contest is almost over (ends today!) so be sure to stop by soon! Click here to read the contest details.

* If you’ve read my recent post Introducing the me underneath it all…, you know about the Blog Carnival happening at Graceful Agony, a chronic pain blog I read. The First Round of posts has been posted! So here is the thread to visit if you want to read all the posts that were created as part of the carnival. I also wanted to share the graphic that I created for the carnival (I really love how it turned out):

* For this link, the blog itself is not a new one in my reading list (I was a featured artist there last month), but I have recently stumbled on a post there that is new to me that I wanted to share! I found this post on the blog Ideas for Scrapbookers that shows you how to create little covers for 3×3 post-it notes – an awesome last minute gift! Totally perfect timing for me to see this because tomorrow is Avery’s last day at his current daycare so I am in the middle of putting together some gifts for his teachers.

Other Blogs I try to keep up with once in a while:

* Design Mom ~ a very cool woman who is a graphics designer but also a mother of SIX (she’s definitely one of those “I want to be like her when I grow up” type people!)

* The Cornered Office ~ A great resource for any WAHMs and/or moms running small businesses.

* Information is Beautiful ~ Really neat visual interpretations of statistical data!

This is really just a small sprinkling of the Blogs I have in my “To Read” Bookmarks folder but I would say they are all amongst the ones I am able to get to most frequently. I actually find it really hard to keep up with reading as much as I’d like to – even though I have fairly large chunks of time lying down in front of my laptop, I do find it still a bit challenging to read sideways and my brain is in such a fog sometimes (example: I just typed “gof” three times before being able to type FOG!!!) I can’t process what I’m reading so I give up.

Any good blogs you want to share with me? I love reading about design, WAHM business tips, scrapbooking, chronic pain, and just meeting new moms who have interesting views on the world and cool tips to share so please drop a link in the comments (as long as it doesn’t have swear words, sexual words, drug names, etc., my spam filter won’t send it to the Junk bin! lol)

Happy Blogging and thanks for reading!