With the new Paper Towns movie coming out next week, I convinced everyone at HGTV Handmade to do a week dedicated to Paper Towns DIYs and I think my DIY Magnets came out so cute. I haven’t done a John Green/nerdfighter related craft in ages, so this was so fun for me to brainstorm and put together. Keep reading to learn how I made each magnet!
The giant thumbtack magnet was the first idea I had, since it’s based on such a gorgeous book cover. Originally I tried to figure out how I could cut off the metal part to make it look like the thumbtack was sticking out of the fridge, or how to build an oversized thumbtack out of paper. But then I had a brainwave and searched on Amazon, and sure enough you can buy oversized thumbtacks for just a few dollars and they were exactly what I was picturing. All I had to do was glue a magnet to the side with e6000 and let it dry for a few hours.
You guys know that I am super into bunting (I actually have another bunting tutorial coming out next week on Handmade too!), so I decided to make some miniature map bunting, based on the full sized map bunting I made ages ago. This was so easy to make, and you could easily make it longer for decorating your room or miniaturize it even more for a dollhouse. I kind of wish I hadn’t written DFTBA on it, since the silver paint pen didn’t show up that well on top of the map, but I still think it’s so adorable. Plus I love how I made it so it can be either a magnet or hang from thumbtacks!
When I was in college, my roommates and I were obsessed with magnetic poetry and even made our own words by writing on magnetic sheeting and cutting it up. So when I had the idea make magnets out of my labelmaker, similar to the labelmaker jewelry I posted the other week, I knew I had to make a ton of words to make a fun magnetic poetry set. Unfortunately I realized while I was filming that the D key on my labelmaker is broken, so “Don’t” still looks a little janky even though I tried to print it at least five times. Life of a crafter.
And these are also great because they have neodymium magnets on the back so they can actually hold up photos and papers, unlike the weaker magnet in most magnetic sheets!
This one is a really specific Paper Towns and old-school Vlogbrothers video reference, and it is the Great White Wall of Cow. All I had to do was spray paint a toy cow white, glue on a magnet and use a sharpie to write on the words.
And finally, I made a magnet out of the J Scribble, which is what John Green calls his signature. This is one that only the biggest fans of John Green will recognize, but I just love it. Spray painting it definitely make it look more finished, so maybe I’ll make one in every color, just like when he was signing TFioS with every color of Sharpie!
I didn’t want to leave out Hank, so I also made a Hanklerish magnet, which was a little more annoying since I had to make two pieces and glue them together, and then also glue on the magnets pretty precisely as the eye. I definitely almost glued it to my scrap paper a few times! But I love how it came out, and it’s another one that only the most hardcore nerdfighters will recognize.
To decorate my fridge under my magnets, I broke out my Instax Share printer, which lets you print photos onto Polaroids straight from your smart phone! The film is fairly expensive, so this lets you choose exactly what to print rather than using the Instax camera and only getting one shot at the photo you want. I printed a bunch of Paper Towns photos – one of the poster, one of a piece of art by Risa Rodil, and one that looks like a polaroid taken on set.
But then I realized that a bit of a life hack would be to print out selfies from the Instagrams of your favorite actors and YouTubers, and it’s almost like you were there hanging out with them! This is totally something I would have done if Instagram had been around when I was in high school, but let me know if you think that’s weird or creepy, because I’m on the fence about it.
And just for good measure, here’s a photo of John and I at last year’s VidCon, held up by a daisy magnet I made for a little looking for Alaska flair.
So I hope you guys liked those crafts! They’re perfect for decorating your fridge or your school locker, and they’re all so easy to make. Let me know which one was your favorite and how excited you are for the Paper Towns movie. I’m so sad that it comes out during VidCon, since I’ll be so busy running around and doing stuff that I probably won’t see it until the following week. But if you’re inspired to make some John Green DIYs, you can check out all of mine in this playlist! Big thanks to HGTV for letting us do a Paper Towns week over on the channel, and stay tuned all week because Meg, Marianne, and Julia also have Paper Towns DIYs that I’m sure will be gorgeous!
