4 Pinks & A Blue: Adorable Apple Magnet Craft

Ever have one of those ideas that comes to you and you think, "Oh, I've got to remember to do that with the kids." I've had those plenty of times (please tell me I'm not the only one...)

Well this time it actually wasn't like that at all. I had a craft idea, made a note of it and filed it in the appropriate week's folder so I wouldn't forget, purchased the necessary items and filed those too. All was ready to go...but it didn't happen...not at the planned time anyway.

This is an apple craft that I was going to do with the kids the week of Johnny Appleseed Day back in Mid-September. Well, needless to say here it is the 4th of October and I didn't get it done. I, however, decided to go ahead and do it anyway-it's not too late to still go pick some apples and if anyone decides to do just that this little craft will tie in nicely.

Here is the finished product. Cute huh?!

Okay, here is what you will need:

1 square felt of each of the following colors: red, green and brown. (You could actually use scraps for the green and brown if you have them but I didn't).
Metal frozen juice lids. 1 per apple magnet. (This was a great way to use my stash! Come on, you know you have them too!!!)
Glue. I used Aleene's although hot glue might be fine as well but the kiddos won't be able to use that as safely.
a magnet to fit across the width of your lid. (My lid measured 2.5 inches)
Sharpie marker
Contact paper *optional
a picture of your cutie "apple" pies (heh, heh!)-approximately 2 1/4 inches by 2 1/4 inches
Sharp cutting scissors for the felt and kids scissors if they are helping you.

Now that you have all of your items collected here is step 1:

With a felt tip marker, trace around each juice lid on the red felt.

Cut out circle with sharp scissors.

Step two is to cut out a stem and leaf for each lid you just traced. I just eyeballed these. No measuring needed here.

Now, grab your glue of choice...

...and saturate the back (which is really the outer part of the lid when it is attached to the juice container, it has the lip) of the lid with glue. Don't be stingy here, we want this stuff to stick.

Center your red circle on the juice lid and press down to make sure that the felt gets covered in glue.

Now take your little stem and leaf, dot some glue on the back tip of each and place them just below the lip of the lid. Add another dot or two to the front tips and press the red circle down on the stem and leaf to adhere.

Yes, Littlest, that's right, now they will need a picture of their cutie apple pies!

Since I have long sinced drained my precious computer of colored ink, I was forced to print these out in black and white. Not my first choice but they turned out better than I thought.

Here is what I did. I found the picture that each child wanted for their magnet, created a copy of the original, changed it to black and white and then cropped it. I then opened up a new Windows document, clicked on the Insert tab then the Picture tab. I found my picture and inserted it. Once back at the Windows doc. I click on Picture Tools then Picture Shape. I looked for a circle shape and clicked that. That created an already perfect circle that I then needed to size down to 2 1/4 inches long and wide. I did this for each of my pictures and this is the sheet I ended up with.

Now, as if that wasn't hard enough, let's continue.

You will need to carefully cut out your picture. You can have your children do this if you don't mind it not coming out perfect and if they won't mind if they cut some off by accident. Amazingly enough I was able to handle letting the girls do this part. Okay, go cut it out.

Now I opted to cover my pictures to ensure that if they get ripped from their apple beds they will most likely survive with little harm but you don't have to cover yours. If you decide to cover yours, um, now would be the time to do it. Sorry, no pictures of that. Do you know how hard it is to get clear paper to come out nicely in pictures?!!

And once again you'll get out your glue and pour it on the back of the picture and then...

...make sure that you center the picture to the stem and push down on the picture just as you did with the red felt circle way back when you started this project. Didn't realize this post would be so long! The execution isn't this long, I promise!!

Now you will need to take your magnet and, making sure that the apple stem is centered, glue that down across the back of the lid.

And now you will have to accomplish the hardest part of this craft. Leaving these little apples alone to sit and dry. Don't touch 'em! Refuuuse the temptation to put them on your fridge too soon! No one likes unripe apples and you won't like these until they're nice and ripe, um...dry! And if you make it this is what your little orchard will look like...

Now there, wasn't that so worth the wait?! Such cutie pies huh?!! I LOVE these. Finally, something cute and homemade that isn't wrapped up and sent to someone else!! *Sigh* hope you enjoy 'em!!

I also found this way cute apple craft over at 4 Crazy Kings, cute huh?!