Layered scrap wood Christmas magnets with charred edges

Nov 09, 2026 Last reply: 1 day ago 3 Replies
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The design that jumps out first is a flying saucer wearing a Santa hat, beaming up a gingerbread man. That single flat magnet sets the tone for the whole set: playful holiday themes cut from thin plywood, finished with charred edges and dark engraved linework that give every piece a crisp outline.



The rest of the collection is just as fun. There are wall brackets with a hanging elf, a hanging nutcracker paired with a candy cane, and a dragon clutching an ornament engraved with a snowflake. The layering gives each design real depth, and the cut and engraved details on the nutcracker, dragon, and abduction scene are what make the set stand out to me.



Assembly is straightforward. The maker applies PVA wood glue with a brush, presses the layers together firmly by hand, and lets them dry. There was a snag along the way: pressing glued pieces together immediately caused them to slide while the glue cured, so the brush method was adopted instead. The maker considers that approach strong enough for magnets like these, which seems reasonable given how light thin plywood must be.



The finished pieces are backed with magnets and hold to a gray painted metal filing cabinet. One can be pulled off to show its layered profile and then snapped back on, which is a neat way to demonstrate both the construction and the magnetic hold. The one thing left open is the origin of the design files, since that question has not been answered yet. Turning scrap material into a seasonal set like this is exactly the kind of project worth highlighting.


The brush-applied glue seems like the smart part of this build to me. Sliding layers mid-dry is a real headache with hand-pressed assembly, and switching to a brushed coat instead of pressing wet glue around neatly avoids it. The trade-off is probably slower assembly, but for small layered magnets that seems like a fair price for keeping the edges aligned.

How thick is the plywood used for each layer, and how many layers does a piece like the dragon end up with? The profile shot when one magnet is pulled off looks nicely deep, so I am curious how the stacking is built up. Also, is the charred edge a single-pass cut or does it take more than one pass to get that dark outline?

A suggestion for a variation: since the dragon already holds an engraved snowflake ornament, the same idea could be stretched so the ornament is a separate tiny magnet that sits in the dragon's grip. That way the cabinet could be rearranged with different ornaments swapped between the wall brackets and the dragon, and the set would get more play value from the same scrap pile.

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