OK, so with less than 6 days to go, we are now approaching the realms of last minute, and the need for speed crafting, if you are still hoping to give homemade presents!
I always struggle a bit with what to give the Small’s teachers at this time of year, and really try to give a little something handmade, rather than resorting to a box of chocs, or a bottle.
I made some of these peg clips recently at my friends fab pre-Christmas craft evening, and it occurred to me that they would make very good gifts.
This is what you need:
- Wooden pegs
- Paper of your choice-old books, sheet music, wrapping paper, even newspaper, would all work well
- Glue-I used mod-podge for mine, but at the craft evening, we used PVA and it worked just as well. I am told you can also get proper decopatch glue
- Scissors
- Craft magnets-I bought a load of these ones here a couple of years ago from Guy’s Magnets (or you could cut strips off some existing fridge magenets-you know like the freebie flexible plastic ones you get-they could be cut with scissors, and should work ok)
- Glue gun
This is what you do:
- Cut your paper into strips that are about 1cm bigger all the way around, than the long side of your pegs
- Apply glue to one long side of each peg, and then stick the paper on. I also creased along the edges at the same time
- Leave to dry (it doesn’t take too long)
- When dry, cut your paper as close as you can to the edges of the peg
- If you want to, you can then do another coat of glue on top-this works well with mod-podge. If you are using PVA, then for the coating bit, I would dilute it about 70% glue, 30% water, to make it more spreadable
- Leave to dry again
- Plug in your glue gun to heat up, and then glue the magnets onto the BACK of the pegs. I found it best to glue them about half way down, and to put a dab of glue onto the peg, rather than the magnet. Have your magnets to hand, and do this one peg/magnet at a time, as glue gun glue goes off in seconds!
- You’re done!
I then glued some wrapping paper to some card, and pegged the peg magnets onto this, with a little box saying what they were (in case of doubt!). Although I did think in hindsight, I could have just used the fronts of some old Christmas cards, and saved myself some gluing!
I made three sets:
I’m very chuffed with these-I just hope the teachers are too!
I’m not sure if it will work, but I’m going to try and attach a PDF of the labels, so that you can download it and print it if you want to make some yourself, cos I’m nice like that…!
Do let me know if you make some 🙂
I also make magnetic pegs (and buy my magents from Guy’s Magnets) although I use neodymium ones. I also put on the back of the label/packaging that magnets are dangerous if swallowed (as that is recommended by Guy’s Magnets).
Are the neodymium ones better Heather? These ones are super strong!
Absolutely great idea!
Thankyou!