How to Use Up All Those Old Fridge Magnets & Declutter Your Fridge Door

This morning I was looking at my fridge and I had a brain wave!
It didn’t have to be so messy. The photos stuck up there with crappy old fridge magnets from tradies we’ve probably never even used don’t have to keep falling down. And those crappy fridge magnets can disappear too.
No, I am not talking about chucking it all for a more minimalist approach. My desire to keep things out of landfill – not to mention my desire for easily changeable photos on the fridge – precludes that option.
Instead, I cut up the old magnets and stuck them to the back of the photos. I could have used permanent glue or even a quality double-sided sticky tape guaranteed never to come off.
But I didn’t.
Instead I kept it simple, which also means it will be easy to swap these photos out with others if I want to.
Step 1:
Choose your photo:
My family posing in front of the Washington Monument | SustainableSuburbia.net
This is a pic of my husband and kids posing in Washington DC while we were travelling around the States last year.
Step 2: Choose your magnet & cut it up if necessary. Stick some sticky-tape loops to the front (non-magnetic) side of it:
showing one large fridge magnet, then the same magnet cut into pieces with sticky tape on each piece, sitting on the back of an upside down photo | SustainableSuburbia.net
I chose this old calendar magnet from our local MP, and cut it up. For some other photos though I just stuck one smaller magnet in the middle of the back, or two smaller magnets, one on each side.
Step 3: Stick the magnets to the back of your photo – sticking them into each corner like this makes for less chance of the photo getting caught on a passing garment either getting pulled off or getting tatty on the corners. As I said though, I didn’t do it like this for all of them.
old fridge magnet on the back of a new photo | SustainableSuburbia.net
Step 4: Stick ’em on your fridge:
A slightly less cluttered fridge - lots of pretty photos, no ugly magnets covering them up! | SustainableSuburbia.net
Pretty simple, and I can’t believe I never thought of it before. Or read of it. Maybe it’s so simple no-one bothered to write it up before! And the left over magnets (or half-magnets? I stuck ’em out of sight, on the side. 🙂
Have you done this with your old fridge magnets? or do you just chuck em? Or do you have other idea for re-using old fridge magnets? Please share in the comments!
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This post will be shared at Essentially Jess’s fabulously named link up: http://www.essentiallyjess.com/ibot/ That’s if I remember to link up tomorrow morning… And if I don’t, I am sure you will still find lots more goodness over there to keep you busy over a cup of tea.

8 thoughts on “How to Use Up All Those Old Fridge Magnets & Declutter Your Fridge Door

  1. What a great idea! I’ve kept some old fridge magnets in a container of bits and bobs. I should do this too. Sadly, I’d need to print out some photos first! I don’t get around to printing them often.

    1. I have to admit, most of the photos on our fridge have been given to me by my sister or sister-in-law (who is great about both taking *and* printing photos of the kids especially). The one I used in this blog post I printed, but it was actually meant for sending to someone else… Just never got around to it!

  2. We have quite a few magnets on our fridge too, but they tend to be ones that are souvenirs from different places. I’m afraid the real estate and similar ones do end up in the bin … when the kids were little we used to give them to the kindy/preschool for craft but after they grew older it fell by the wayside!
    visiting today from #teamIBOT x

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