How to Make Clay Cookie Magnets

Dress up any dull refrigerator with decorative cookie magnets made out of homemade clay. In just a couple of minutes you can whip up a cookie dough clay that bakes to a consistency similar to unfinished ceramics. Use your favorite cookie cutters to stamp them out, and with the right paint and embellishments, your refrigerator decorations will look good enough to eat. Let them hang year-round, or make a set for all seasons.

Things You'll Need

• 2 cups baking soda
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1 1/4 cup water
• Pot
• Spoon
• Plastic container with cover
• Paper towels
• Parchment paper
• Cookie cutters
• Rolling pin
• Bowl of flour
• Acrylic craft paint, tan
• Fabric paints with scribble-tips
• Glitter
• Miniature beads
• Hot glue gun
• Magnets

Instructions

1. Mix the water, baking soda and flour in a pot on medium. When it looks like bubbling mashed potatoes, take it off the heat. Scrape the contents of the pot into a plastic container.

2. Wet two paper towels and wring them out. Lay them over the clay and cover it. Allow it to cool for about 15 minutes.

3. Lay parchment paper on the table. Uncover the clay and remove about a quarter of it when it is cool enough to touch. Mold it in your hands and roll it to make it smooth. Put the clay on the parchment and roll it with a rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thick.

4. Dip cookie cutters into a bowl of flour, then press them into the clay, straight down. Put as many cookie cutters onto the clay as you can fit, leaving about 1/2 inch of space between each. Remove the excess dough from around the cookie cutters, trying not to wiggle them. Roll up the excess dough and put it back into the container under the damp towels.

5. Lift the cookie cutters. Use a toothpick or the tip of a knife to help push out the edges of the clay if they stick to the cutters. Place the parchment on a cookie sheet and put the cookie sheet in the oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare another batch for the oven on a new sheet of parchment.

6. Set baked cookie clay aside to cool down for a couple of hours. Paint the cookies a base coat with a tan acrylic paint. Give them a second coat if desired.

7. Shake fabric paint bottles with scribble-tip applicator spouts, holding the spout down. Keeping the cap on, tap the bottle in an upside-down position on the table for about a minute to let the air bubbles rise away from the applicator. Remove the cap and squeeze a line onto a paper plate to make sure it is coming out without bubbles or splatter.

8. Pipe your tube paint onto your cookie clay cut-outs the way you would pipe icing onto a cookie to decorate it. Use white or a variety of bold colors reminiscent of icing and draw designs, facial features or whatever you desire. Scatter glitter onto the wet paint so it looks like colored sugar, or use tiny beads like sprinkles. Let the paint dry overnight when you're finished decorating the cookie magnets.

9. Turn the cookie magnets over and hot glue a magnet to the back. Stick them on your refrigerator. If any of your clay cookies seem a bit heavy for the magnet, glue a second one to the back of it to help support the weight.

Tips & Warnings

• If you'd rather not make your own clay, any air-drying or oven-drying clay that can be painted will suffice.

• If your paint job gets splattered or messy, scrape off what you can and let it dry. A couple of coats of your base color paint will give you a fresh start. Acrylic paints, being plastic-based, are opaque and have excellent coverage.

• To protect your paint jobs, spray your magnets with an acrylic sealer or varnish in a well-ventilated area following the manufacturer's directions.