DIY citrus clay magnets

DIY citrus clay magnets

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It may be winter over here, but I’m dreaming about bright colours and sunshine! All the gorgeous citrus projects that have been doing the rounds on Pinterest have me yearning to make something summery of my own, and one place that’s especially crying out for a citrus overhaul is my fridge.

Out of general apathy it’s bedecked in anything that happens to land in the mailbox – namely take-out menus and not-so-attractive magnets from plumbers, real estate agents and medical centres. Well no longer. With a bit of painterly prowess and some clay I’m going to bedeck my fridge in fruity goodness and you can too!

Materials

  • Air dry light clay
  • Round magnets
  • Circle cookie cutters (one a bit smaller than the other)
  • Acrylic paint
  • Paintbrushes (1 medium, 1 fine)
  • Glue

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Step 1

Roll out your clay using a rolling pin or clean jar and use your larger circle cookie cutter to cut out some circles.

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Step 2

Then use your smaller cookie cutter to make faint outlines in each of your clay circles. Once this is done, set aside your clay to dry (if it’s the air drying kind) or follow the manufacturer’s instructions to harden the clay.

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Step 3

Get all your citrus colours together and paint the backs and sides of your clay circles in bright colours.

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Step 4

Then flip the clay over and paint a smaller inside circle in the same colour as the back and sides (using the outline you created earlier as a guide).

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Step 5

To paint the citrus ‘segments’, make lines across the clay circles in white paint so that you divide the circles into halves, then quarters, then eighths.

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Step 6

Lastly, get your glue (I used superglue) and stick a magnet onto the back of each clay circle.

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And that’s it! You’re ready to go forth and deck your fridge out in fruity style.

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As always, there were a few lessons learnt by yours truly while creating this project, the most painful of which was that not all primary colour paints will mix to form citrus colours!

My attempts at pink turned out okay and yellow was fine but a brighter orange would have been nice and the green was terrible. Not even worthy of being called ‘green’ really… it ended up more of a poo yellow.

I’d recommend either buying ready-mixed citrus colours or doing a bit of research before buying your paints so you know what shades will best mix to get the colours you’re after. And if you find out what colours to use to make a nice lime green, I’d love to know!

xx Steph

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