13 Points for M-A-G-N-E-T-S

Recently while visiting the in-laws, I was rummaging around in their basement checking out some of my husband's preserved childhood relics.  I swear, that house always has new hidden treasures. 

My dear mother-in-law has given me a (loud) working vintage General Electric fan because she just had a couple sitting in the basement.  It looks great on top of my 1950s china cabinet but is too frightening to actually use both because it sounds like a tornado and would probably maim a curious cat, what with it being built before safety standards and common sense.  (Or maybe cats and babies have just gotten dumber?) 

She gave me a fantastic color block afghan made by her mother (or maybe her grandmother?) that was just hanging out in the back of one of her linen closets all shy and stylish.

She gave me some vintage PanAm paraphernalia including a couple of bags and an actual flight attendant scarf.  From an actual flight attendant's uniform.  From PanAm.  Like whoa.  Because she has a friend that use to work for PanAm and she knows her daughter-in-law likes 'that 50s stuff.' 

Seriously, I just never know.  It would not surprise me if she had a vintage Pyrex bowl in the laundry room to hold the dryer lint.  Sitting on an Eames chair.

So this particular time I was looking through a stack of 1970s little boy's board games.  There were tens of tens of them.  Strange ones, like Haunted Mystery Manor and Save Scooby Doo.  (I just made those up.  I can't remember the real titles.  These were no Monopoly or Clue.  In fact, now that I am typing this, I want to go back and open those boxes and check out the actual board part of the board games because I think some of them will look great on the wall.  Ok.  Mental note.  But not the point of this post.)

I found a Scrabble game and remembered a Super Crafty Idea that I read on the interwebs some time long ago about making Scrabble tile magnets and classing up the refrigerator.  And dude, my fridge needs help.  Exhibit A:

So I brought home the Scrabble game and made some fridge magnets.  I even had a fun surprise when I opened the box and the wooden tiles were a cool red color instead of boring beige.  (Ok, I wasn't that surprised.  Nothing from that woman's magical house surprises me anymore.)

It's super easy.  Just get some magnets and your trusty glue gun and maybe some cardboard if you are the messy type (like me).

Make sure the magnets are smaller than the Scrabble tiles.  Duh.  Then just glue them onto the backs of the tiles and let them dry.  Hot glue is dry enough in about fifteen minutes but I let them sit overnight just to make sure.

It also helps if you take this opportunity to rid the fridge of expired coupons and invitations to past events.  Ta-da! 

I'm putting the over/under on the fridge being messy again at about seventeen minutes.