I recently saw an art project using pressed pennies in a shadow box frame, which made me start thinking about my small collection.  But I’m generally not an exact copy-cat.  I like to take an idea and run with it in my own direction.

In this case, I have the darling hubby to thank.  I showed him the blog post [wish I had pinned it to be able to give credit, sorry =( ] and he immediately said “Why don’t you cover that letter C with the pennies?”

You are a genius, honey!  So here is what I did….again, with my own take on it {wink}

But first, a trip to the thrift stores ( ok so really I was looking for a lamp shade, but had no luck).  What I did find were two letters with hanging hooks attached.  An A and a D.  Sweet, hubby and my first initials.  Only $.99 each.  They were kinda funky looking but for less than a buck a piece I thought I could do something with them.

Yeah, I know…took the hooks off before I took the pic.

At my third stop I found a canvas marked with an orange sticker for $1.99 (50% off orange stickers today, yay!)  Only $.99!

Kinda reminds me of our recent trip to Arizona…

Once I got home I broke out the craft paints, my glue gun and the pressed pennies.

This is a foam tray I use for mixing paint.  Picked up at Dollar Tree in a 10 pack and I’ve only used 2 ( over and over).

Here’s a little tip for your hot glue gun…rest it on a plastic lid (in this case a cool whip lid).  Makes it easy to clean up. The glue just pops off when it’s cooled.

Here is how I’ve been storing my pressed pennies….

I laid out my pennies before I started gluing…

Once I was sure I liked the layout I fired up the glue gun.  Glueing the pennies down was easy and went pretty quickly.  Maybe 5 or 10 minutes.

A couple coats of  black paint on the canvas and a couple coats of metallic antique copper plus a dry brush coat of light metallic copper on the letters.  Time to glue everything to the canvas.  And here is the finished product.

A few more pics of some of my favorites….

Just had to show Tiger supervising with his eyes closed… I must have done a good job =)

That’s it!  Now go get your pressed pennies out on display!

Please take a minute to scroll down and leave a comment.  I would love to know what you think.  Did this inspire you?  Will you use this as a jumping off point for your own project? Or just to say Hi I was here.  Comments are the only way to let me know what you are thinking.  If you enjoyed, please share with your friends or followers.  Thanks =)

I’m linking up:

Beneath My Heart

Today’s Creative Blog