CASH SOW

When I was in 5th grade, we made paper mache piggy banks in school. It was fun and easy, and very cute.

My kids were playing with balloons the other day, so I got the idea to make those same piggy banks with them. Hyrum has been looking for/wanting a piggy bank with no access hole at the bottom, so I figured these pigs would be perfect.

It's messy and a little time consuming, but it's fun and easy. Here's how you make them, in case it looks fun to you too:

First, cover your work surface with garbage bags. Tape them down! You'll be glad you did.

Blow up a balloon to whatever size you want your pig to be. Talea wanted them huge, but normally they're much smaller.

Cut 6 cups out of a paper egg carton, or use little paper cups (though I like the look of the egg cartons better). One cup needs to be cut in half (to make 2 ears). The other 5 make up the snout and 4 legs.

Cut newspaper into strips.

 

Get some glue...any old white glue will do...

and mix it with water until it's thinned down a lot. (After this project I saw cheaper, homemade paper mache recipes online, dang it!)

Dip a strip of newspaper in the watered down glue and squeegee off the excess with your pointer and middle fingers. Place it on the balloon and smooth out any wrinkles or bubbles. Repeat.

Continue this process until you've covered the balloon competely. Don't forget to leave an open slit in the top, or you'll have to cut one in afterward! When the pig is covered, add the legs, nose and ears. Use gluey newspaper to attach them to the body. Cover the ears entirely, but you may want to leave the end of the snout and the bottom of the feet uncovered. You should apply roughly 3 layers of strips before letting it dry.

When the pig has dried. Do it again. It needs lots of layers to make it thick and sturdy. Maybe 2 or 3 more layers. You don't want a flimsy pig that falls apart under the weight of coins, especially if its a huge one like ours.

When you're confident that the layers are fairly thick (maybe about 5 or 6 layers), let it dry, then paint it. The kids had a great time painting them, but I warn you, it's so much easier to strip them down to their underwear than to try to wash paint out of clothes!

We made ours black and white with pink snouts and pink inside the ears, then painted copper coins on the one that will hold pennies, and silver coins on the ones that will hold...you guessed it, silver coins. I know you're thinking that since I'm such an organization freak that it had to be my OCD idea to separate the coins. Well, YOU'RE WRONG! It was Hyrum's. I'm not the only one with organizing issues.

I was surprised to find that Kiersa is getting pretty good at painting in circles! We also glued googly eyes on them for fun instead of painting eyes on.

 When the paint is dry, pop the balloon through the slot you didn't cover in the top. Cut a little hole in the rear end and put a curly pipe cleaner in (I curled mine around a little glitter tube). It helps to make a tiny corkscrew shape in one end of the pipe cleaner and corkscrew it in. It stays in better that way. Then put some glue on the hole to secure it.  Next, drop your coins in! 

Now, where do I store 2 massive, money hungry hogs where they aren't a pain to get to in order to drop loose change in them? I guess we should have done smaller pigs.