Handmade Holiday: Fail

Handmade Holiday: Fail

Nugget is barricaded from the kitchen because he's a busy body, always loving to pull out the entire contents of the baking goods shelves in the pantry.

Ere go, he is not allowed to play with his magnets I bought him a week or two before installing a "No Toddler's Allowed Super Gate" between the living room and kitchen.

I am a nice, nice mommy wouldn't you say?!


Muahahaha!

I've been tooling around an idea in my head for a while about how to make a mock refrigerator door for him to spell inappropriate words with his wooden letters magnets by Melissa & Doug. He is my child after all.

While out at some thrift stores last week, I stumbled upon a good, sturdy backless picture frame for $6. I was pretty old school style with a speckled, robin's egg blue and gold color combo going on, but I knew slapping a coat or two of paint onto that bad boy would totally transform it into exactly what I was going for.

So I had my frame, I had my paint, all I needed was the magnet board. I debated buying a pack of those 12" square tiles at JoAnn's, but then I would have to figure out how to join them, trim them, find a coordinating fabric to cover the seams, and it was just going to be too much extra work. I craft often, but I'm also a lazy ass.

I turned to Jen over at Tatertots & Jello for some much needed advice in the right direction. Jen is super savvy and does a lot of work with burlap and...dun du du dahhhh...magnet boards. I sent her an email for her super, secret insider's tip on where to get the roll of sheet metal. Home Depot, roofing department. Score!

Even being the pseudo intelligent, great at following directions type I am, I bought the wrong thing. What metal ISN'T magnetic?!

Okay, so I passed all of my science classes by the skin of my teeth and opted out of college, but that doesn't mean that I should not have found what I was looking for. I'm going to finger partial blame on the Home Depot sales guy who looked at me like I had twelve heads when I asked him where rolls of sheet metal would be in the store. He probably didn't even know what I was talking about. I say so because he blurted out a sign of surprise when we came to the display in the roofing department.

$30 down the tube, because, naturally, anyone buying something they've never used before to craft/construct a specific project would test its magnetic strength after cutting the appropriate size for the frame.

Me = Queen of the Incompetent.

Here are the before and after of the project even though it's not technically finished until magnets stick to the damn thing.

 P.S. Jen email me with tips to save my sanity. :)

P.P.S. Anyone with tips on how to go about obtaining magnetic metal for this board, please share your expertise.