DIY fridge magnets

How to make fridge magnets at home

Look­ing for a new way to stick your im­por­tant notes and pho­tos to the fridge? Here’s a sim­ple way to make your own amaz­ing mag­nets!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Dye can leave marks on sur­faces.

Reagents and equip­ment

  • 100mL wa­ter;
  • food col­or­ing;
  • 150g gyp­sum (al­abaster);
  • sil­i­cone molds;
  • mag­nets;
  • con­tain­er.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Pour the wa­ter into the con­tain­er and add some food col­or­ing. Add the gyp­sum in small por­tions. Mix thor­ough­ly to re­move any lumps. Pour into the sil­i­cone molds. Wait a few min­utes. When the gyp­sum starts con­geal­ing, in­sert mag­nets into the base. Wait for it to hard­en com­plete­ly (ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5 min­utes), and your fridge mag­nets are ready!

The dry­ing time de­pends on the amount of wa­ter in the mix­ture – the more wa­ter, the longer it will hard­en.

Process de­scrip­tion

Gyp­sum’s chem­i­cal name is cal­ci­um di­hy­drate sul­fate Ca­SO₄·2H₂O. It oc­curs nat­u­ral­ly in min­er­al form – se­len­ite Ca­SO₄·2H₂O and an­hy­drite Ca­SO₄. When heat­ed to 150-180 ° C, cal­ci­um di­hy­drate be­comes semi-aque­ous cal­ci­um sul­fate Ca­SO₄·0,5H₂O, bet­ter known as gyp­sum plas­ter. The dif­fer­ence be­tween the com­pounds is the num­ber of wa­ter mol­e­cules they con­tain and also the min­er­al struc­ture. When mixed with wa­ter, gyp­sum pow­der quick­ly hard­ens, re­vert­ing to cal­ci­um sul­fate di­hy­drate. This prop­er­ty of gyp­sum makes it use­ful in con­struc­tion, sculp­ture, and medicine.

Try it