My (Additional) $.02

Time for a smashing penny update!

First, I think most of you agreed that my Dumbo penny looked out of place on that silver beaded necklace, so I put it on a simple chain:


Then I replaced it with more loops and beads on the silver necklace:

No pennies now, but it's still pretty cute.

For my Alice penny, I did another long chain design similar to the pirate ship Tinkerbell:

The old key came from a lot off ebay eons ago. I scrubbed off the worst of the rust and then clear-coated it with a matte lacquer, to keep the rust off my clothes.

To keep the pink crystal in place, I put the ring through the chain link, so it can't slide. This is also a *great* way to keep your necklace from twisting around on you. In fact, I may go do this to all my necklaces now.

Here's a closer look at the penny and crystal charm, which came off a broken bracelet:

By the way, I have a whole new respect now for Etsy jewelry sellers: photographing jewelry is HARD! I tried the photo cube, but the light just didn't seem right. My best luck was with these shots, which I took outside in the shade. And since I'm still pretty much helpless in PhotoShop, they're all straight-from-the-camera, for better or worse. :)

Here's a new necklace, where I played around with drilling more holes through the penny:

The two chains are part of a single necklace. All I did was break one in the middle and attach the penny on either end. I scavenged the beads from a third chain which used to be part of the same necklace.

This penny was the most brass-looking of them all, so it goes really well with the gold.


And finally, my most favorite of them all: my seahorse penny.

You ready for this? :D

TA-DA!!

Now, as you may remember, I started with this:

So to get the shape right, I had to remove the connecting beads, overlap the leaf sections, and then use bronze brads to hold the sections together.

The nice thing about the brads is that once I bent them open, they also held the penny in place on the back, like so:

The other ends I bent around the edge of the pendant, so everything is super snug without a drop of glue.

Once the frame was complete, I started brainstorming ways to cover up the text. Call me crazy, but I just didn't want to have "Virginia Aquarium" showing. Well, believe it or not, I had another necklace with matching crystals on it. A few snips with the pliers and dabs of Gorilla glue, and...voila!

No more "Virginia Aquarium"!

I don't have a backer on this yet, but I plan to turn it into a pin. I'll use a back that I can also string on a necklace, though, so I can wear it either way.


John and I went out to the Magic Kingdom on Sunday and snagged some more smashed pennies, plus a smashed quarter or two. I'm very happy to report that the quarters *just* fit the larger oval scrapbooking frames, so I may have one or two quarter designs to share later on. (The downside is that the quarters are much thicker, and therefore harder to bend.) I also snagged some great leather belts at a thrift store, so I think I'll make a few more penny cuff bracelets - perhaps for a give-away? [eyebrow waggle] Stay tuned!


Note: See my original smashed penny tutorial here.