How to alter a business card magnet

At the big Close to my Heart team meeting I went to this past weekend I got in on a bulk buy of business card magnets. I love these and actually have yet to use my business cards on them. Instead I turn them into awards for my own team and little refrigerator works of art with my stamps. The magnets measure 3 1/2" by 2" and it takes so little to make them into a sweet gift.

A couple of months ago my brother, Scott Wilson, came to my team meeting and taught all of my downlines and myself to use a brayer. He used to work at a stamp shop and knows everything there is to know about making beautiful cards (he also makes other artwork, I'll include some at the end of this post). He showed us how easy it is to decorate a background with a little ink and a brayer. Brayers work very well with glossy photo paper. I have a ton because I get 100 4 by 6 photo paper cards whenever I buy new inks for my printer. If you take one of those and cut it to 3 1/2 by 2 inches you'll be set to make this magnet art.

I don't know if you've noticed but at the top of almost every page in a Close to my Heart catalog there are "lipstick swatches" of the color combinations used on that page. I utilize these constantly because I'm not good at choosing my own mixture of colors and I could never figure out how to use one of those color wheels. Close to my Heart does it for me so it's the first thing I look for in the new catalog (like the one I just received). The very first color combo in one of our new papers is juniper, olive, creme brulee and cocoa. I thought those would be perfect for this magnet because the colors said "spring" without being too pastel. To start your magnet ink up your own brayer in creme brulee.

Now run it back and forth over the glossy cardstock until it's just the right color for your tastes. Give it a minute or two to dry (glossy dries the ink slower).

Next take the Friendship's Flight stamp set and stamp the sentiment on the lower right hand side in cocoa. Your stamp will stick to the glossy cardstock so carefully peel the paper off the stamp.

You'll be doing some two step stamping on this, first stamp the butterfly background in juniper.

Now line up the outline of the butterfly and stamp it in cocoa. Luckily you can see what you're doing!

Do the same thing with the smaller butterfly, first in juniper....

then in cocoa ink. See how easy this is?

Now take your foam tool and olive ink and distress the edge to provide a pretty outline or frame for your magnet.

Get your magnet and peel the wax paper off so the adhesive shows.

Attach your "work of art" to the business card, trim with scissors if you don't line it up exactly. You're done, how pretty, how easy and what a simple little gift!

Here's a couple more in other colors. Unfortunately the colors look so much better in person than they do here in photos but the point is that you can make these in many different colors to suit your taste.

Here's a piece of my brother, Scott's, art. I'm very proud of him.