Works for Me Wednesday: Magnets

Yes, magnets.

One day this week, while sitting with my 9 year old so that he would remain sitting at the table working diligently on his math assignment (ahem), I decided to make my refrigerator look a little better.

I started with making a new homemade "dry erase" surface to record leftovers, kitchen projects that need to be completed, etc.   (Here is my old one mentioned in a previous blog post.)  I found prettier paper than I had been using and covered it with some laminating paper my aunt had given us years ago.  This time, I wrote not only the days of the week along the side, but also a space to record the time I started the crock pot before I laminated the paper; the rest is erasable. I also now have prettier magnets because...

My next project was to cover some of those advertising magnets you receive from businesses.  I started with covering one magnet that I've been setting my magnetic kitchen timer on.  The refrigerator surface was getting scuffed from the constant movement of the timer (Does anyone else have kids with a fascination with timing everything?) and I had placed one of those ad magnets behind it...but it wasn't pretty.  Now, with some paper and a little glue, it is.

 Then I got a little carried away with other advertising magnets and smaller magnets...

Grace (5) was so impressed with my work that she said it looked like a company had made them.  ;)

~~~~~

This is something we don't use anymore, but it saved a lot of headaches and arguments for us a few years ago when we first began allowing Robert to "roam the neighborhood" on his own to visit his friends.  After he had permission to go to a friend's house and we had told him what time to return, he would write the information on a piece of paper that was held by this magnet (under "GOING TO:" and "BACK AT:" at the base of the magnet).  This was a simple solution to keep him accountable--and there was no discussion of "But I thought you said..." because he wrote it himself, and he typically wrote the time on his hand right then since he already had a pen handy.  (This was another advertising magnet that I had covered years ago.)

What works for you?