People talk about board books like they’re indestructible, but my girls have taken down quite a few sturdy, “toddler-proof” books in the their day. They’ve torn covers from books and peeled images from cardboard; they’ve digested chunks of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (ironic, I know). More than a few of the fallen have been favorites of theirs (and ours), and their faithful service inspired me to look for ways to honor any surviving pages. Thus, our battered collection of DIY board book magnets was born!
This project is so simple that it doesn’t need a tutorial, really. The abridged version goes like this: slap something magnetic on the back of your book’s pages. Stick them on the fridge. The end.
But I like things laid out in lists, so for those of you who, like me, enjoy a good step-by-step tutorial, here it is:
Materials
- board book pages (I favor the small ones—2×2″ or so)
- self-adhesive magnetic sheets
- clear packing tape (optional)
Instructions
Clean up pages as best you can.
If your pages have any ragged edges or if it will just make you feel better about life in general, wrap pages tightly in packing tape. You can skip this step (I did for the batch photographed and they’ve withstood two out of three daughters so far), but it does make a nice drool-barrier if you’re willing to spend an extra minute or so on it.
Trim magnetic sheets to desired size and adhere them to the back of the pages.
That’s it! The final step is purely optional, but we’ll be doing it this year: tuck a few into your toddler’s Christmas stocking and enjoy a few quiet moments while they put them on the fridge and take them off again and put them on again and take them off—again.
And guess what? This girl—the one whose rough handling of her beloved Kittens book inspired this post—turns two this weekend!
I can’t believe it either.