The Fix Its: DIY Magnetic Flower Vases

By bruno

Our DIY magnetic flower vases Alicia found these great magnetic flower vases that amaze your dinner guests by balancing implausibly on the table-top. Unfortunately, the price tag was also implausible ($42 dollars!).

So, in true Curbly fashion, we decided to do it ourselves. Here's the video, details and links are below.

Like this video?

For those of you who want to try this at home, here's what we ended up buying, and some tips to get you started:

Ingredients:

3 - 3/8"x12" Sink water line extenders ($1.70 each)

1 - Kwik-Fix Super Glue (3 pack for $0.99)

1 - All purpose silicone rubber kitchen and bath caulk ($2.59)

3 - 5 lb Neodymium magnets (super-strong!) ($2.95 at Ax-man Surplus)

Sheet metal for base plates (cheap)

Steps:

1. Trim pipes to desired length using a hack saw. Make sure not to cut your girlfriend's fingers off.

2. Fill one end of each pipe with the silicone caulk to create a water-tight seal. Be patient while they dry (add some pictures to your Curbly account!)

3. Glue a magnet to the base of each pipe using super glue. Super glue + fingers = bad, be careful.

4. More patience while drying (do yoga or something).

5. The metal plates go on the table under a table cloth, the pipes secure (magically!) to the vase-bases via magnetism. Flowers and water go inside.

6. Your friends think you are magic.

Watch the first Fix-Its video!

Tagged:
decoration vase flower diy the-fix-its video curblyvideo

November 19, 2006

13 comments

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dwarrenku

February 09, 2007

I'm creating this right now but I've changed it up a little bit. I'm using rigid 1/2 ID copper tubing with a stronger magnet. The tubes are going to be painted a matte black and they'll sit on a piece of sheet metal recessed in a stained box. I'll post pics once everything's done, but hopefully it looks nice. It's for a valentine's day gift.

Chrisjob

January 26, 2007

How would one cut down the sheet metal to the smaller squares? My experience using tin snips left nasty, crooked edges. Would the hack saw work?

jellzey

January 16, 2007

i just made a few myself. the only small tubing i could find at lowes was copper tubing, which looks really great! thanks for the idea.

oldbay

January 05, 2007

I keep waiting for your finger to get cut off...definitely get a pipe cutter.

Any chance this would work with magnetic paint? How well do the supermagnets attach to the magpaint. Could I paint my coffee table with mag/chalkboard paint instead of using the sheet metal.

Neiman

November 29, 2006

I'm diggin the YFly t-shirt you had on in the video!

maybeface

November 27, 2006

gorgeous. can't wait to try it out.

gregoryjohnson

November 20, 2006

Okay. The Iowa City Curbly.com user group DIY video tour of Iowa City is now online!

gregoryjohnson

November 20, 2006

You won't believe this! I was just doing my improvisational unrehearsed video walkabout Iowa City to tour the local DIY resources in the downtown area. I walked into one of the stores and there before me were the magnetic flower holders! I had to laugh. I didn't know they existed until your video. In fact, I wouldn't even have known what they were had I not seen your video. How funny. I'll let you know when the video is ready for viewing. It's rendering now. ~ Gregory ~ P.S. DIY Maven, you really are the Maven of DIY and I'm feeling like a poser of DIY in light of your latest DIY posting!

gregoryjohnson

November 20, 2006

Oh, and about the plagiarism comment. Talk about a case of the pot calling the kettle Pyrex! I'd call you a plagiarist, but then I'd be copying you which would be... Oh dratt! ~ Gregory

celee

November 20, 2006

very cool! awesome idea and love this site! thanks for sharing.

DIY Maven

November 20, 2006

Your vases are unbelievably cool! I'm making some!!

And Bruno, don't believe a word Gregory says. I'm not going to demean myself by getting involved in some petty competition with a plagiarist.

By the way, have you seen my fabulous new post on How to Flip A House in 90 Days: Getting Started to Demolition??!!

gregoryjohnson

November 19, 2006

Bruno and Alicia! That video was totally cool! I think maybe DIY Maven and I have an unspoken competition going on to see who can create the most impressive DIY posts on curbly. You've just set the gold standard! Fortunately I have two Apple PowerMac computers available that both have dual liquid-cooled 2.5 GHz G5 processors in them and they are fully loaded for video production with 23 inch Apple cinema displays! So, one computer can be rendering and exporting to streaming video format while the other is used as a high-end video production system. Let the games begin! ~ Gregory

creede

November 19, 2006

Very Nice! It would probably be easier to cut the pipe with a pipe cutter. They just twist around in circles and make a nice clean cut. I think you can get one for like $5-$10.