Magnetic Playset

Of all the handmade Christmas gifts my wife has made, I think the kids will like this one the most.  I know the girl will love hers, because she can't leave the magnets on our fridge alone.  Most of the stuff for this project we had lying around the house anyway, so I think it cost us around five dollars to make this masterpiece.

Here's what you need:

Cookie Sheet
Fabric
Magnets
Stickers
Glue
Scissors
Index Cards
Duct Tape

We had some old cooking sheets that we were going to throw out, so we decided to up-cycle them into this project.  You can also purchase a new cooking sheet from Wal-Mart for 74 cents.  The fabric was under one dollar (again, at Wal-Mart) and the magnets were six dollars for a box of 50.  I think that works out to 12 cents a magnet.  We bought some nice, sparkly stickers for around two or three dollars and everything else we already had.   Putting it all together was pretty easy.  Easy enough that the girl helped us work on brother's gift.

The magnets are simple.  Place the stickers on index cards, cut out the cards, then glue them to the magnets.  Done.

The tricky part is getting the fabric to lay smoothly on the cooking sheet.  Apply some glue to top of the baking tray and place your fabric down.  Smooth it out from the center to the sides.  Wrap the fabric over the sheet and onto the back.  Glue the fabric to the bottom of the cooking sheet.  Finally, cover the seam where the fabric ends with some duct tape to keep it from pulling away and coming unglued.

Glue the fabric to the back.

Kids love to pick at things so you better tape those ends.

There you have it.  A homemade Christmas gift that cost somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five dollars.

Check out these Handmade Christmas Gifts.