Just so you don’t think Melinda and I only work with fabric (we love all kinds of creative crafting), I am going to show you what I transformed from a store clearance, after Christmas purchase.

The purchase I made was of several metal desktop magnet boards. I really thought the design on the magnet boards was pretty dull, so I scraped off the design and was left with this…

I don’t want to offend whoever did the original design, so I am only showing you the scraped off version!

I transformed two of them into baby shower gifts before I knew I would need pictures of everything I do! So here are the transformed magnet boards for the baby gifts…

On this board, I used paper and fabric for the background. The magnets are made with fabric and buttons. These colors matched the new baby’s room.

The background on this board is made from various scrapbooking papers. The magnets are dinosaur buttons. I cut off the button loop on the back and glued magnets to the back of each button.

Then I decided to make one for myself. I’ll let you sneak a peak at the finished product first…

I love the sound of birds outside, but these are the only kind I want inside my house!

I first painted the backside and edges of the metal with dark brown craft paint to coordinate with the colors I was using on the front.

Using these scrapbook papers, I cut out various elements that I wanted to use and glued them with Mod-Podge to the metal board. I let the glue from one layer dry before adding another. 

For the magnets, I first tried cutting out bird shapes, laminating them and gluing magnets to the back, but I wasn’t happy with the look. Too plain!

So on one of my trips to Michaels, I happened upon some little packages of chipboard shapes in their $1 bins. Two of the packages had birds (along with lots of other shapes), so I bought them with the thought in mind of using them for magnets. I used watercolor pencils to color the birds and then blended the color with water and a brush. After they dried, I glued magnets on the back.

The plain chipboard birds in the first picture are a different design from the ones I used since I didn’t take a picture of them before painting.

I sprayed the metal magnet board and the bird magnets with a clear acrylic sealer to protect the finish. To protect any furniture that the magnet board sits on, I cut a piece of felt the size of the bottom of the board and glued it in place.

So look around your home. Is there an item that you have sitting around that you don’t like the look of any more? Perhaps it matched your decor at one time, but no longer does. Before you toss it, think about what you might be able to do to transform it into something beautiful and useful for yourself or someone else!

P.S. Check out last week’s Transform It Tuesday to see the update. Melinda finished a pillowcase dress and added a cute bow. Have you started making a dress yet? Let us know if you want to participate in the challenge and we will let you know how to get the dresses to us.