If you are a parent, you have undoubtedly come upon a crime scene like this:
Oh, the carnage!
The victim: A perfectly good book
The perpetrator: Chubby Hands
The crime: Shredding pages when Mom thinks Chubby Hands is sleeping
It’s hard to know what to do with books once they’ve been victimized. Tape? Staples? Sometimes that’s the best way to go. But we have some books in our library that have been taped so many times, they resemble a collection of Egyptian mummies. Any reasonable person would throw those books away.
But I’m a bibliophile, and I can’t stand throwing away books, especially since the most abused books in our library are my favorites.
So instead of throwing out those beloved books, I turned them into magnets! Every day, I get to enjoy these little reminders of the many sweet times I’ve spent reading to my children. That’s much better than tossing them in the trash!
Guess How Much I Love You? I love you so much I can’t throw you away.
Here’s what you need:
1 ruined book (The Very Hungry Caterpillar makes darling magnets!)
1 (or more) packages of bubble magnets (see below)
Modge Podge (you can buy it at the craft store or make your own using equal parts Elmer’s and water)
Scissors or a 1″ paper punch
Craft glue or a hot glue gun
Here’s what you do:
The process is very simple. I picked up a couple packages of bubble magnets at Staples for about $1.99 each. You can get the clear plastic bubbles at the craft store, but they’re way more expensive and don’t include the magnets!
Staples magnets=cheap and effective
It is very easy to peel the magnets apart and remove the previous graphic.
Using the magnet, find images or words from the book that you’d like to magnify under the bubble and trace it with a pencil. Cut it out with a sharp scissors. If you have a 1″ punch, you could use that to punch out the images instead, but the punches don’t work on board books.
Brush modge podge on the underside of the bubble
Brush modge podge on the underside of the acrylic bubble, being careful not to get it on your fingers or on the top of the bubble. Place your circle cutout face-down into the goop and flip it back over onto some aluminum foil or parchment paper. You should be looking at your image under the plastic bubble! Press out any air pockets and continue with the rest of the circles until you are finished.
Modge podged and ready to dry!
Double check to make sure you didn’t get any modge podge on the tops of the bubbles. If you did, wipe it off with a damp sponge. Double check for air bubbles as well, and then use a heavy book to weigh down the tops of the magnets while they dry. This may take several hours.
Once dry, glue the magnets to the back of the bubbles using a hot glue gun or heavy-duty craft glue. Allow to dry completely.
That’s it. You’re done! Aren’t they adorable? I love them so much, I actually look for broken books at thrift stores. They make great gifts for baby or bridal showers, teacher appreciation gifts, or even a travel tic-tac-toe game for the kids (just use two different books for the pieces and a metal tin to serve as both the game board AND storage container). Have fun!
Book magnets make a great Valentine’s Day or teacher appreciation gift!
Hi! I love this idea! I wanted to say hello because I met your mother in law at the convention in Tacoma around June 1. We were sitting together and I mentioned I had five kids and she mentioned your blog. I love it! Your MIL had such nice things to say about you, it made me jealous. Forgive me, but you are so lucky. I love your heart-warming posts! I live in S. Everett and have a wordpress acct. too. God bless you!
What a wonderful idea! I’m going to have to try this! We have a lot of these kind of books in our house. 🙂
Love this idea!!! So clever AND would make a wonderful gift!
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I am going to do this! What a great little gift it would make! 🙂
What a fantastic idea!!
Cute idea! Our very first copy of “Pat the Bunny” is in my bedside table, in piece. I was never able to part with it. 🙂
What a fabulous idea. Inspired. 🙂
That insight’s just what I’ve been looking for. Thanks!
When I originally commented I clicked on the Notify me any time new comments are added checkbox and currently each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment.
LOVE this!!! If you have a board book, you could use an exacto knife or something similar to separate the pages for easier cutting :O)
Love this! I have to repair the one page that my little chubby hands ripped-it is from our Bible story book we read every evening. Funny-every book Pete has ripped a page out has been from Bible story books. The first was the page of the 10 commandments, and the second was David and Goliath. Maybe he wanted to read them over and over?
So precious and clever! I am always looking for sweet, unique teacher gifts to show them how much we love them – without spending a lot 🙂 This will be such a big hit – thank you for sharing!
Cute, Cute, Cute! I would never have thought of doing something like that.
SOOOOO cute! Thanks for the great idea! 🙂
What a great idea! Adorable!
Oh my gosh! This is brilliant! Thank you so much! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Love this idea! So sweet 🙂
I just tossed a torn copy of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, guess I should now go dig it back out. These are very cute! (WHY must those chubby hands resist naps all the time anyway?!)
I made Very Hungry Caterpillar magnets for my niece and I almost couldn’t give them to her! They turned out so cute, and what better place for them than on a fridge???
I SOOOO love this! I, too have a very worn copy of “Guess How Much I Love You”. Mine is a board book though, so I’m not sure I could use it. All four of my kids surely know the book by heart!
You can! The book in the pictures is/was a board book as well. It makes for some tough cutting with the scissors, but it works great!
I love this. I love this. I love this!! Oooh!! My ugly old file cabinet is going to have some ADORABLE magnets to hold my little man’s masterpieces and pictures! 🙂