Why I Started Still Magnets

Still Magnets didn't start because I sat down one day and decided I wanted to build a photo magnet business.

It started with one magnet on my fridge.

It held a photograph of my best friend, who had passed away. I saw it every day, but over time the photograph started fading and peeling.

I remember looking at it and realising that eventually the image might disappear completely.

I wanted something better for the photos that matter.

That was what sent me looking for a better way to turn photographs into magnets.

I wanted something that felt more durable, looked beautiful and was actually worthy of the photographs we choose to keep around us.

Eventually, I started learning how to make personalised photo magnets myself.

At first, it was simply about replacing that one magnet.

Then I started making more.

Somewhere along the way, it became my little piece of me.

I was also deep in motherhood at the time.

After having my second child, I had started feeling a little lost outside of simply being Mum. I loved being their mum, but I also realised I needed something that was mine.

Making magnets became that.

I would work after the kids went to bed, learning about printers, paper, materials, colour, different finishes and all the tiny details that go into making a photograph look right.

There wasn't a big launch or some perfect business plan.

People started ordering.

Then more people started ordering.

And Still Magnets very accidentally became a business.

Why photo magnets?

Most of us have thousands of photographs sitting on our phones.

They're our babies, weddings, grandparents, pets, holidays, friends and ordinary little moments that suddenly become some of the most important photos we own.

But most of them are barely looked at again.

That's what I love about photo magnets.

They take a photograph out of your camera roll and put it somewhere you naturally look every day.

On the fridge while you're making breakfast.

While you're packing lunches.

While you're standing in the kitchen wondering what you opened the fridge for in the first place.

Still handmade in Sydney.

Still Magnets has grown since those first magnets, but the way I think about people's photographs hasn't really changed.

Every personalised order is made and checked here in Sydney.

I test papers, printers, materials and processes constantly because I care about how the finished photograph looks.

I also know the image you've uploaded might mean far more to you than I could ever know.

It might be someone's first baby photo.

A wedding.

A grandparent.

A pet.

A family holiday.

Or someone you deeply miss.

That's why your order will never really feel like just another set of magnets to me.

And that's Still Magnets.

A small Sydney business that started because I couldn't bear to lose one photograph.

Now I get to help other people take the photos that matter to them and turn them into something they can see every day.

Which is probably not the business I expected to build.

But I'm very glad I did.