This Little Piggy....

I'm not the craftiest person out there, so please don't laugh when I say I'm very happy with my latest little craft-y project.

I bought this piggy bank from Target for $2.50 when their Christmas stuff went on sale.

I'm sure somewhere there is a big demand for Christmas-themed piggy banks, but not in this house.  So, I set out to de-holiday it for my son.

I did a couple of light coats of Rustoleum's Bright Coat Metallic Finish spray paint in Dark Bronze from Lowes.  (Don't buy it from Amazon for $10, it was less than $4 at Lowes - I just wanted to show the exact product.)  I was very pleased with the finish - kind of rough with lots of sheen to it.

I made a special trip out to Hobby Lobby to find a cool stencil for the side, but in the end didn't like anything I saw (lots of cute girly options - of course), so I ended up making my own by printing out a giant cents symbol and tracing it on both sides with a pencil.  (Not too creative - I know, but I wanted it to feel a  little old school.)  Vinyl or stickers would be adorable here if you would like to do this project yourself.

Then I used some leftover antiqued gold craft paint to carefully paint in the cents symbol and add the eyes back on (he looked a little soulless without them).

I think he's adorable.  My son is already having the best time filling him up and he's definitely learning the value of a dollar.  I like to let him walk on my back when I want a cheap massage - and now he's decided to start charging me for the pleasure (!).  I've been using it as a teaching tool by going over the names and values of the different coins, as well as talking about the value of saving up for something big.  Not bad for $2.50, right?