If you haven’t seen the American show Portlandia, then I suggest you get to it immediately. It’s a series of sketches about the types of people that, allegedly, live in Portland, Oregon. In Portland, they care about the environment, they are politically aware, and they’re more than a little weird. I want to move there when I grow up.

Anyway. Portlandia has a sketch called ‘Put a Bird on it!”. I tried to find a YouTube clip to link to, but didn’t manage it. The premise: you can put a bird on anything, and it’ll make it better.

That was the inspiration for last summer’s new idea: Stick a Magnet on it! Of course, as business ideas go, it’s genius. And it’s a fun way to spend an afternoon. Whilst Stick a Magnet on it hasn’t yet got its own Etsy shop, I’d like to think the name has been trademarked and no one can now steal it. (I might do it one day, if only to prove to the Husband what a business genius I am… I think he doubts it).

The beauty of the idea, is that you can put a magnet on anything, and make it a magnet. Sounds simple, right? And yet, I haven’t been able to find one shop on the internet, whose sole marketing plan is sticking magnets on junk… so there’s a gap in the market. And people always need magnets.

Here are a few of my designs. I call them designs… I’m not quite sure that’s fair.

The holes in scrabble tiles were made for magnets

Dice are great to stick magnets to

Beer cap magnets

Someone pointed out that sticking magnets on stuff is something that anyone can do at home. All you need is magnets, junk, and glue. That’s as maybe, but I came up with the idea first, okay??