Entirely Emily: Pressed Pennies

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Pressed Penny Containers for Disney World {with Silhouette file download }

Do you know what one of the cheapest souvenirs is at any theme park or tourist attraction?.....Pressed Pennies!!

Normally they cost around 51 cents. That is 50 cents and the penny to press. We get them at the Zoo here in Saint Louis, Grant's Farm and the Transportation Museum just to name a few. The girls love them and I love how inexpensive they are.

I've seen all over the web how to use Mini M&M containers to hold your money for your pressed pennies. You take 2 quarters, 1 penny, 2 quarters, 1 penny, 2 quarters, 1 penny, 2 quarters, 1 penny.....until you fill up the container. I had been looking for the Mini M&Ms with no luck but around Easter I found these really long special Easter colored ones. They looked kinda big but I hadn't found the small ones yet until 2 weeks after Easter at Party City. Of course. The big ones looked like too much the smaller ones looked too small. They only way to figure it out was too see how much we could fit in each one.

One roll of quarters will get us 20 pressed pennies. Our books hold 36. I filled up the larger penny holder and got 30 pressed pennies worth of money in there =$15.30. And I put the remaining $6 in the smaller container. We could get more but with all of the other souvenirs we are getting, I think we're good.

I wanted to be clean and simple. I went into my Silhouette program and created some mickey head shapes and their names to put on the side. I used the Paper Source vinyl that I bought from Hobby Lobby. It's kinda silly though because K loves green and S loves blue so I really didn't need to put names on them at all. You could even just use the cool stickers that you can find at any hobby store. I saw a ton when I was shopping for all of my Disney crafts.

The mickey head shapes were about a 1x1" size so they wouldn't wrap around the tubes too much when they were places on. And the font I used was Cheri. It's so cute.

Pardon the bad Photoshop on the tubes. I forgot to take the pictures until after I put their names on the tubes. Whoops.

Super easy and super cute.

Here is the Silhouette file you can download : Mickey Silhouette File

Monday
What is the Gunny Sack -Making the world Cuter -Debbie Doo -DIY Show Off
-I should be mopping the Floor

Tuesday
Tip Junkie - My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia -The Kurtz Corner
Sugar Bee - Romance On A Dime -The Winthrop Chronicles

Wednesday
Someday Crafts - Sew Much Ado
-SNAP

Thursday
Beyond the Picket Fence - Somewhat Simple - Live Laugh Rowe
- The Shabby Cottage The Taylor House- House of Hepworths
Two In Diapers-Mommy Brain Mixer

Friday
Naptime Crafters - Stay At Home Nation
Young and Crafty - My Turn(ForUs)
Delicate Construction
Serenity Now

Saturday

Six Sister's Stuff

Cheerios and Lattes

Monday, May 6, 2013

Pressed Penny Books for Disney World ( with Silhouette Files )

So begins my " May: Month of the Mouse" series. There are 6 parts to this series in anticipation of our trip to Walt Disney World. {squeal}

My girls love getting pressed pennies as souvenirs whenever we go to any kind of tourist attraction like our Zoo or Grant's Farm.

When I found out that WDW had then and there were something like over 500 different kinds, I was super stoked. This would keep them busy and maybe distracted from all of the other more expensive stuff there. Don't get me wrong, we're going to let them get a bunch of other stuff too but I wanted to keep it to a minimum.

I saw on Diseystore.com that they had penny books but they were like $20 a piece. Ah....no way. I went to my trusty friend Google and typed in Pressed penny books and up popped Ebay. Normally Ebay and I don't get along. I've had some bad luck but I ordered two of the pressed penny books from
seller tranzcollection for $4.69 a piece and then they discount the shipping when you buy more than one. Pretty sweet, right?

They are 3.5" inches wide and 6.5" inches tall black with 44 openings, 36 pennies and 8 quarters. There is a front that's not too pretty and a back I can decorate... so I will :)

I wanted to keep it simple since it's a small space so not a lot of decor on these. And I wanted to use my Silhouette machine my hubby got me for Christmas and make it with vinyl but I'm sure you could do any and all of this with paper and maybe a little ModgePodge to help it stick on?

K loves green and Mickey Mouse. S loves blue and Tinkerbell. That made my design decisions easy I went online and found some images I liked and imported them into Silhouette deluxe edition to create my cutouts. I also used the font Waltograph since it looks all Disney-like.


screen shot of my window open in Silhouette

After the designs were ready I cut them out and applied them to the books...voila! I did have to double up my vinyl cutouts on the plain green color. It was very kinda transparent. It was Paper Source brand from Hobby Lobby. The price was great but maybe that's what you get . In fact , all of the vinyl used for this was this brand. I thought it cut well and did the job. They have a bunch of colors available and I don't have to order off the internet in a pinch.