I love taking photos with Instagram because even blurry ones can be salvaged with a filter applied. Check out my blurry pics:

My mom loves photos of the kids, but normal 4×6 prints weren’t going to cut it for Instagrams and I’m a little too frugal to use the many Instagram photo printers out there. Being the crafty type I wanted to DIY it. I remember seeing How About Orange’s DIY pantone chip magnets and thought a fun twist would be to use photos.

While browsing the craft store for magnetic backing and the paper glaze I came across some wooden squares and added those to my basket thinking they would make a nice sturdy base. Plus I have a bad track record with cutting foam board (which I was going to use instead).

Here’s what I left the store with:

- Adhesive Magnetic Sheet (used for photos)
- Aleene’s Paper Glaze
- Wooden squares (1.25 inches, 3 packs of 5)

Using iPhoto I printed the pictures 6 up. Select your photos, choose print, select the contact sheet theme. Change the number of photos in a column to 6. This size will give an almost perfect fit on the 1.25 wooden squares. Cut the photos to size leaving a small white border around the edge. Following How About Orange’s suggestion I taped them onto the wooden squares using double sided tape. Then spread the Paper Glaze on top. (I’d recommend doing a test to see how much glaze to use. My first attempts were too thick and the glaze was still cloudy on some parts. Oops!)

I noticed little bubbles in the glaze and used a toothpick to smooth them out. You can see the magnet of the stuffed dog has a big air bubble on his head (oops again!) After drying overnight I attached the adhesive magnetic sheets. Cut to size then peel and stick. Here’s the back:

And the fronts:

Because I took the photo straight on you can’t see the glossy surface but it’s there, I swear! It’s not as puffy as I would have liked but another coat probably would do the trick.

They’ve held up pretty well. I made these for Mothers Day and gave each grandma 6 and I kept 3 for us. The kids like to play with them… not sure why, maybe it’s because they like to look at themselves?!

Total the cost wasn’t that bad, I tossed my receipt but think it was under $10 to buy all the supplies. I had a 40% off coupon as well.