Welcome back to Day 2 of 52 Projects projects! I'm sharing my own #35/52: The Great Fridge Makeover. As I was thinking up ideas to share here this week it occurred to me that my refrigerator front used to be far more organized before I had children; I'm the kind that likes to have pictures displayed with magnets, but lately it just looks like I put everything up blindfolded. With my elbows. For some inexplicable reason none of my regular magnets made it back to the fridge when we moved in October, and the whole thing was looking decidedly un-cute. Behold:
I think Martha Stewart just got a headache but can't figure out why. There's an attempt to make it look interesting with a few pieces of artwork... clearly, it's time for a new plan. We have a glaring lack of extended family photos displayed in our house; this is one of my favorite things about my youngest sister's house—she does a really good job displaying family photos everywhere. Goodness knows I have plenty of photos, so what is the obvious answer? Turn our refrigerator into a family photo gallery. I took everything down (my new plan is to create a hallway art exhibit of the girls' favorite and funniest pieces of artwork) and got to work. Because I wanted to keep this project's costs down, I decided that I would use magnet bulldog clips to hold 4 x 6 photos.
Have you any idea how expensive pre-magneted bulldog clips are?! Anywhere from $3.99/4.99 for TWO. I checked. More than one place. I couldn't find any plain bulldog clips in town to make my own magnet clips, so I ordered a box from Amazon at 37¢ a piece (they come in boxes of 36).
I adhered some sticky-back magnets from a craft store (not sure which one, since I've had these particular sticky-back magnets on hand just waiting for their chance to be needed since around, oh, 1993?) and printed out a whole bunch of family photos—grandparents, first cousins, aunts and uncles, plus a couple of our own family. I also made a few postcards to hang up among the photos with good family quotes on them. Here is the after shot:
Ta-da! Family photo gallery in a neat grid! I attached a little strip of kraft cardstock to the top of each photo so it wouldn't get chomped by the clip.
Here's a close-up of one of the little postcard quote card things I made, using one of my two favorite lines from an Avett Brothers song (the other favorite line will show up in a project later in the week!). Since most of my photos live either in my computer or on a scrapbook page in between the covers of an album, I love that these photos will be enjoyed by my family every time they walk in the kitchen. It will be easy to switch them out for new ones, too. Perhaps you've taken a vacation or attended a sporting event that resulted in 97,000 photos? Earmark 25 of them for a project like this: )
