Penny Saving Project

Literally.

Christy (Gigi) had her birthday and the girls wanted to make her something special. Handmade gifts don't always turn out great, but my girls and I like to do them anyway.  It gives us time to really think about the person we are giving it to and put thought and effort into a gift.

I've seen this project before made with pennies, and so it sparked an idea to make Gigi something with pennies!

 
and this...


I thought the girls would have fun with a penny project.  This project slowly evolved as we went along.  First we intended to just glue a bunch of pennies on a charger plate or something like that to be used as a decorative piece.  Then I thought it might be neat to replicate the design of her coffee table

Gigi's coffee table

 The plan was to have the heads facing up on one side and tails facing up on the other.  We scrounged up all the pennies we could muster out of our drawers, piggy banks, cars, and purses.  Many were disgustingly old and dirty.  Why not just go to the bank and get some rolls of brand new pennies, you ask.  Well, because I felt the need to turn this into a learning and laborious project.   ;)

I've heard that both coke and hot sauce clean pennies, but I had neither.So the first thing we did was stick them in some TSP that I had.  TSP is known to clean grime off of metal.  We soaked the pennies and scrubbed with an old toothbrush.  They got somewhat clean, but not great.  So then Halle started searching online for the best penny cleaners.  People said vinegar, salt and lemon juice, and baking soda solutions worked.  We went with what we had in the pantry.  Halle made the most acidic cleaner she could make:  a combo of tomato sauce, lemon juice, and orange juice.  It got the pennies cleaner than the TSP.  Then Halle saw a suggestion to use SOS pads.  That worked!  Really well.  We were excited at how great it worked, but I only had one left and it lasted about fifty pennies.  So then we tried a Magic Eraser.  That worked the best!  Voila!  We trialed and errored and discovered what we think is the best penny cleaner.  (we had two different magic erasers and one worked better than the other).  After a while the ones cleaned with the SOS pad started to change colors, so don't use that after all!  Unless you want blueish pennies.  

Before and After of cleaning a penny with a Magic Eraser.  Probably about 10 seconds of rubbing.

Halle learned what year the pennies changed from copper to zinc and how to tell the difference.  Which then went into a lesson as to why it was changed.  So we got science, history, and economics lessons out of this project.  :)

Through all of this trial and error, the girls labored hard at scrubbing pennies.  They spent several hours working on getting old pennies shiny.  I was proud of Arden's diligence. 

Brian came up with the idea of topping a trivet or lazy susan with pennies instead of a plate.   And my design wasn't standing out enough, so he also suggested painting one side.  

Halle and I went to the store and found this, a bamboo lazy susan.

We painted the base black, and Brian painted the penny heads a dark antique copper color.  We picked out the brightest pennies for the tails side to contrast against the dark ones.

After lots and lots of configuring and reconfiguring the design, we got the pennies lined up how we wanted them.  The girls and I glued them all down with Loctite G02 glue.  I chose that glue because it works well with metals, dries fairly quickly, but not so fast that it won't budge as soon as you use it.  Therefore, I was able to move the pennies a little if they weren't exactly where I wanted them.

this is before I sprayed a clear coat over the entire thing.

Well guess what happened once I sprayed the clear coat on it.  It ate the paint!!!!!  Ugggghhhhh.  Halle and I were soooooo upset because it looked horrible.  Not sure why it did that because I've never had that happen to me before.  My only guess is it was a reaction with either the chemicals we used to clean the pennies, or the penny itself.  

SOOOO WE MADE ANOTHER ONE!.  (This time just for kicks we made the tails dark and the heads stayed bright.)  We tried a water resistant decoupage sealer for the second one.  Which didn't work either!.  It was too thick and gooped between the pennies.  It was supposed to dry clear, but didn't.  The problem wasn't as catastrophic as the first one so we were able to fix it for the most part.  Whew!  I really knew Halle would be upset if the second one didn't turn out either.  

By and large this was a fun project.  Except for the clear coat catastrophies!  

 So Happy Birthday Gigi!  This project was made with lots of love from your girls.