Do It Yourself Dishwasher Clean/Dirty Magnet

Finally, a do if yourself stocking stuffer than I came up with all on my own! This is a dishwasher clean/dirty magnet featuring my own Jean-Luc, who is the beauty of our feline family. But as you can see, even he can look dirty, as here when he got into the fireplace one day. I know I'm anthropomorphizing, but doesn't he look grumpy with the smudges on his nose and paws? (This was the largest I could get Blogger to display the whole magnet, so I've posted the "dirty" image by itself at the bottom of this post.)

I've been meaning to make this magnet for ages, because my husband and I had kept forgetting if we had run the dishwasher, so I scribbled "clean" and "dirty" on a piece of paper and we stuck it on the dishwasher with a magnet. But then I remembered the fireplace picture of Jean-Luc, and I knew I had several pictures of him looking clean and pretty. I don't have Photoshop or any fancy graphics software on my computer, but it finally occurred to me to try this in Microsoft Publisher, where I typed in the "clean" and "dirty" captions, turned one photo upside down, and then "snagged" the two together as a single "photo" using SnagIt. I then uploaded the result to Walgreens and ordered it as a 4x6 photo print. Finally, I used an adhesive magnet backing sheet that I've had lying around for ages -- I can't remember where I got it because it literally was several years ago, but surely they sell this stuff at craft stores?

And I'm really happy with the result! Because I had to save as a jpg in order to upload to Walgreens (as opposed to a .png file, which retains more detail), the letters are a little pixelated, but the result is still good enough that I'd be happy to give this as a gift. Wouldn't this be a terrific stocking stuffer for a grandparent, showing the inevitable "baby eats spaghetti" or "baby eats birthday cake" as the "dirty" side and a really angelic photo for the "clean" side?

It's also really affordable, because you can make several magnets out of a magnet backing sheet, and the photo print at Walgreens was all of 19 cents! Walgreen's also lets you play around with all kinds of borders and effects, so this is something you can really have fun with! I also experimented with printing the whole image as wallet-sized, which would result in a fairly small magnet. Ultimately, though, I went with the larger 4x6 size, because I love Jean-Luc's little face, clean or dirty!


[Don't forget to come back tomorrow for another stocking stuffers giveaway -- this time, it will be stocking stuffers for men!]

What: Do It Yourself Dishwasher Clean/Dirty Magnet
How much (as of today's post): $1-2 in supplies