Everyone has their own technique for making glass magnets. Our preferences and techniques are based upon not only cost related, but more importantly for safety issues.

• Making 3/4 size glass marble magnets
  Children are more attracted to the smaller glass magnets than our larger ones. So we strongly  recommend and encourage using only non toxic glues (without the strong smell) such as Elmer's glue.
  

We found our 3/4 glass gems at a dollar store, which came in a clear container w/ a white lid. These gems were slightly larger than the 3/4 actual size gems, clearer and less bubbles. Although, you can purchase the 3/4 gems in any craft store or an aquarium fish store too, depending upon your location.

Most magnets can be purchased through craft stores or hardware stores too, but we prefer buying ours at Walmart because of the price. These magnets are much stronger too.

• The most important ingredient to a great looking marble magnet is the photo.

Inkjet Printers or Laserjet Printers

• Inkjet
  Inkjet printers have an edge over laser printers when printing graphics because they work by dispersing precisely measured dots of ink onto a page. Generally, inkjet printers use three basic colors, cyan, yellow and magenta, along with black ink to create the final colors. Inkjet photo quality printers use a six or seven color ink process to produce photo-quality images.
• Laserjet:
  Laser printers have significant advantages over other types of printers. Unlike impact printers, laser printers can reproduce a mixture of text and graphics, including varied font like ARIL, and halftone images. Laser printers use toner, a black powder, rather than ink and do not require special paper, unlike thermal printers, whose images can be smeared if the paper comes in contact with a source of heat. Advantages of laser printers over inkjet printers include higher resolution, no smearing, lower cost per page, and faster print speed, since the entire page is imaged at one time, while an inkjet typically prints a series of narrow strips. However, laser printers always produce raster images, and except in the highest-quality versions are less able to reproduce continuous tone images such as photographs.

• Providing a beautiful photo is the key to making long lasting glass marble magnets. We also recommend using photos from magazines too since the paper quality is the best. After preparing our photos, we use non-toxic outdoor Mod Podge to seal and protect from fading and moisture.

Here are a few tips and techniques that we use for our small mosaic glass magnets.

STEP 1. Glue photo to gem, press firmly. Rub back of photo to remove any air bubbles. Allow drying time.

STEP 2. Brush on mod podge on back of photo, allow drying time.

STEP 3. Glue magnet on back. Allow drying time.

STEP 4. Wipe clean with a cloth.