I had a pile of pins that I used to keep on a cork memo board over my desk. I will be switching my corkboard for a magnet board soon, so I was left wondering what to do with the pins. They seemed like the perfect size for magnets for my new board, so I converted them.

I also had a few metal museum badges, so I thought they might work as well. The needle nose pliers also have wire cutters built into them. I picked up the magnets at Michael’s.

So for the pins with backs like these, I clipped the ends of the pin off and wiggled the wire out from under the metal backing.

For the pins with this type of pin backing, it was just a matter of popping the wire out.

This image shows a museum badge. I snapped off the peg that folds over and sanded it down a bit. Then I put a dab of glue on the magnet and let it set.

With these two pins I got very lucky. The magnet fit so snugly into the back of the pin that I didn’t even need to glue it.

Here’s a quick shot of all of the backings together, with the glue setting (I left it for about an hour).

And here’s my finished product!

Next up on my list is the metal memo board to go with these.