DIY: How to Make Cotton Candy Magnets

It’s officially cotton candy season! I find that to be problematic, however. Why? Cotton candy shouldn’t be limited to ONE season! I don’t know about you, but growing up in a small town meant little-to-no access to cotton candy outside of when the carnival was in town. Maybe the county fair as well, but my main memory of the fair were those shiny wire crowns with foil hearts and stars and long ribbon trains – not cotton candy. With only one weekend a year with cotton candy access, I would try and make it last as long as possible. Have you ever tried keeping cotton candy for as long as humanly possible? It gets somewhat melted from the humidity in the air, making it lose all of its fluffy, cottony goodness. Or the sugar ants find where you have been hiding it in your bedroom, where you sneak pieces of it after bed when your parents aren’t around. The WORST, though, is when your little brother finds it and eats it all (I’m looking at you, Nathan!) since little brothers can be peskier than sugar ants.

How do you solve this problem? You could ask for a cotton candy machine for Mother’s Day to make cotton candy yourself, and then be overjoyed when your two puppers get it for you, but then you run into another issue. The husband-who-says-cotton-candy-is-not-a-breakfast-food problem. Dream crusher. Then you have a moment of genius when you see your pups trying to eat the bag of poly-fil you have out and tell them that, “it’s not cotton candy for pups! You can’t eat that!” It’s amazing how many ideas you get from trying to get your dogs to stop eating things they shouldn’t.

And that, my friends, was how Cotton Candy Magnets were born.

All it takes is some poly-fil, spray paint, wood disks, magnets (duh), and glue. And the ability to remember you cannot eat them. And a good place to spray paint things. Like a place that isn’t the communal courtyard for your apartment building and even though you spray painted inside a big cardboard box, you may or may not have gotten some pink spray paint on some things. In theory, of course. A theory by a friend. That they had in a dream. TOTALLY not me a few days ago when I was spray painting poly-fil in a cardboard box in the courtyard at 6:30 am.

tl;dr: I got some spray paint on things, so BE WARNED.

DIY COTTON CANDY MAGNETS SUPPLIES

• Poly-fil
• Small magnets
• Wood disks
• Spray paint (I used Frozen Raspberry)
• Glue

DIRECTIONS

1. Pull off a small amount of poly-fil and flatten it out some.
2. In your 100% spray paint safe space, lightly spray the poly-fil, turning it over a few times to get as much covered as possible.
3. Let dry.
4. Once dry, pull off small pieces and loosely form them into a somewhat round shape. Or a mountain shape. Any voluminous shape because no one wants squished cotton candy.
5. Put a layer of glue in the center of the wood disk, keeping some room around the edges.
6. Press the fake cotton candy of awesomeness on the wood circle, pressing it into the glue. You’ll want to add a little weight on top until the glue dries. I placed another disk on top and put a notebook on top of that.
7. Once dry, glue a magnet to the back.
8. Sit there and realize that having cotton candy magnets on your fridge just makes you want cotton candy all the time, but you are okay with that.

Did you make these Cotton Candy Magnets? Let me know in the comments below!

xx.