Showing posts with label works for me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label works for me. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Works for Me Wednesday: Magnetic Walls


Yay! I'm so excited to be back at Works for Me Wednesday!

What works for me? Magnetic Walls!

Recently my husband renovated our basement turning it into a multi-purpose family room. As we considered the layout, we wanted to give lots of space for a play area.

Though our son isn't producing wall-worthy art yet, I know he will be someday soon and gave some thought to how we would display it.

Brainstorm: Magnetic Walls!

In one corner of the room, we used magnetic paint primer to transform the walls into magnetic surfaces. The paint is very very thick gooey black. The more layers you paint, the stronger the magnetic pull. We put about 3.5 layers on. Then you let it dry for at least 24 hours and paint your regular paint color over it. There is a slightly different texture to the magnetic surface, but nothing is noticible from a few feet away.

We love our magnetic walls! We purchased magnetic letters and Thomas the Train magnets for them. And, we got creative with thin decorated wood shapes like a train, truck, duck, frog, that we glued magnets to. Lucas LOVES playing with the magnets and gets a kick out of the fact that they stick to the wall. (Disclaimer: none of these magnets are as strong as those which have been recently recalled. Also, they are generally large and flat, not choking hazards).

I'm really looking forward to displaying artwork on the walls, too, when he's a little older.

What works for me? Magnetic playroom walls!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Works for Me! Library Books



Rocks in my Dryer was one of the first blogs I discovered when I started reading blogs and I love it! I'm so excited to participate in Shannon's Works for me Wednesday blogging extravaganza for the first time!

What works for me? Library books!

I've been working at my current job for just over 1.5 years and have only purchased 1 new book in that entire time! I work at a university and we're in a library consortium with many other local universities. I estimate that I read about 16 books each year, just over one each month. (And, since I've joined a second book club recently, this average is bound to increase!)

What do I do? I get all my books from the library!! (The one exception is the first book for my work book club, ironically, it was so new it wasn't available for checking out of any of the consortium libraries!)

If we assume I've read about 24 books in the last 1.5 years and that new books cost an average of $15 (these have mostly been books already in paperback) then I've saved approximately $360 since starting this job!

The Library Works for Me!!