Clothes peg magnets

Memo clips as original memory aid

Submitted by: Pierre Coulon, Vezelois, [email protected]

Online since: 21/02/2008,

Clothes pegs are not only practical for hanging laundry. You and your children can also transform these little wooden pegs into clothes peg magnets. In this craft tutorial, you will learn how to make colourful clothes peg magnets for attaching postcards, notes or photos to metal surfaces. We will also show you how to repurpose clothes pegs as practical memo holders.

Materials needed for the clothes peg magnets

wooden clothes pegs
craft supplies such as rhinestones, feathers, felt, foam rubber, glitter paper, beads or small decorative figures
felt-tip pens and craft paint
glue, such as our UHU MAX REPAIR
small block magnets, e.g. type Q-05-05-02-N

Decorate the clothes pegs

Paint the clothes pegs however you like, or decorate one side of the peg with small figures, beads, small googly eyes or feathers. There are no limits to your creativity! While decorating, make sure not to glue the spring of the peg shut, and that you can still open the clothes peg without damaging your decorations. Lastly, allow your creations to dry completely.

Glue the magnet onto the clothes peg

To make the clothes pegs stick to metal surfaces, you need to attach a small but strong neodymium magnet. This step can be a bit challenging for children. If needed, provide help when glueing on the small magnets. Apply a small amount of magnet adhesive to the back of each peg, then press the magnet onto the glue.

Important: Be careful not to use too much glue. The magnet should not have any glue residue on the contact surface or sink into the glue. This would cause a loss of adhesive force. Place the pegs with enough space between them to dry so that the magnets do not attract each other and shift in the still-wet glue.

Tip from the supermagnete team: The clothes peg spring is metal and therefore ferromagnetic. Because it attracts the magnet, please attach the magnet a little further away from the spring. Otherwise, the magnet will slide toward the spring in the wet adhesive.

Now your decorative clothes peg magnets are ready. On metal surfaces, they are ideal as colourful holders for notes, shopping lists, postcards or birthday cards. But these decorative magnets also look great as embellishments for presents or gift vouchers.

Clothes peg magnets as memo holders

I am happy to present this idea to you, which is very effective thanks to the quality and strength of your super magnets. These clothes peg magnets are "très funny" and can easily be made by children. They will certainly be full of pride when they can give these pegs to friends and family at parties and birthdays.

First, choose an attractive design character, print or copy it, or even use a drawing done by your child. I recommend a size of 5 to 7 cm, so you might need to reduce the size of the picture.

Then glue the character to a 3–4 mm thick piece of plywood.

Let it dry for 24 hours, then cut it out using a jigsaw.

Then take a clothes peg and drill a hole with a diameter of 1,5 mm into one side. Drill a second hole close to the top of a pencil or pen. Connect the peg and the pencil using a thin piece of string (1 mm) and tie a knot on both ends of the string. You can omit this step if you don’t need any pencils on your clothes peg magnets.

Use wood glue to fasten a figurine to the drilled half of the clothes-peg, just below the hole. Use a strong adhesive to glue a small super magnet, for example, a Q-05-05-02-G, to the back of the other half of the clothes peg.

Now you have clothes peg magnets that are perfect for use as memo holders. Everyone will love these memo clips, as I have learned first-hand at various Christmas markets!

Disclaimer: This customer project was sent to us in 2008 by Pierre Coulon from France. The supermagnete team has now updated this fantastic application and added new photos and variations. Thank you for this great magnet project!

You can find more craft ideas with magnets and clothes pegs in the customer projects Blackboards for the fridge and Homemade magnetic Christmas decorations.