Make An Easy Penny Charm

I'm going to be showing my jewelry in a local craft fair this month and one of the items I made up specifically for it is this penny charm with the logo of the local school sports team.

I made a bunch of them and some rings too because I had blank rings left over from another project.

These charms are really easy, the hardest part is waiting for stuff to dry.  I used the following items:

• Pennies
• Mod Podge 
• Clear nail polish
• Jump rings
• Lobster claw clasps
• Paper with image

Tools needed were:

• jewelry pliers or very narrow needle nose pliers
• small artist brush
• tweezers
• dremel drill
• 3/4" circle punch

First I drilled a hole in each penny with my dremel holding the penny down over a block of scrap wood.  The next part for me was printing the image out in a 3/4" size to fit the penny.  You could use any image/paper/photo/etc. you want.  Here's where the 3/4" circle punch comes in handy, it's the same size as a penny.  Alternately you could cut out your image with curved cuticle scissors, takes longer but it works.

I had some of this Mod Podge and brushed it onto the penny then laid down my paper image, lining up the hole with the top of the image.  Let dry.

I learned the hard way that Mod Podge made my printed image go fuzzy when I used it as a top coat, so I tried clear nail polish the second time and it works great.  I used 2 thick coats for a nice finish and this Wet & Wild Megalast has an extra wide brush that makes it ever so much easier to brush on.  I got mine for $2 at Dollar General.

You can coat the back of the penny when the top is dry if you want.  At that point I used a straight pin to poke a hole through the paper and worked it around to make it the same size as the hole through the penny.

Time to add the jump ring and lobster claw.  I use tweezers to pry the split jump ring apart and gently insert the penny so the wire pokes through the hole from the back (less chance of messing up your penny) then add the lobster claw -if you want one- and use the pliers to gently spin it around the split jump ring and you are done!

If you are going to make a necklace or put it on a bracelet you won't need the lobster claw and you can use any kind of jump ring you like.  I made these to attach to key rings, zipper pulls, backpacks, purses, etc.

Linking up at Two Uses Tuesday!  Come see all the great crafts & recipes!