DIY- Projects

DIY- Penny Wall Decor

Copper is super versatile and can blend with any kitchen color palette. Below is a complete step-by-step guide to turning a bowl of pennies into a one-of-a-kind wall decor that will have all of your house guests talking!

This project began when I came across a giant bierstiefel (a German beer boot) that had been full of pennies and collecting dust for ages. I just knew that I could do something really creative with them. And also take back my bierstiefel for more important uses….beer.

(Side Note: this is not our ‘forever home’ so keeping our renovations and cosmetic changes, as budget friendly as possible, is what works for us.)

Having recently painted the kitchen walls a soft nearly-white to help calm down these atrocious faux wood cabinets, I decided to use this bare wall leading to the garage.

So I chose the word EAT, keeping the word simple and block-like allowed for the use of more pennies. The letter forms I found can be purchased in a variety of fonts and styles online at Amazon.com.

Rustoleum has a great line of metallic spray paint including Copper that works great for all types of DIY projects. One can of Rustoleum Meta llic Copper was more than enough, leaving left over for future projects.

I sprayed a light coat on each of the letters knowing that most of them would be covered, but wanted an extra highlight of copper in between each penny. You can leave out this step if you prefer the wooden background.

I washed off the pennies with warm soapy water using a strainer in the sink. This helped also bring back some original luster and ensure no unwanted debris was left. I laid them out on the counter on a dish towel to dry, removing any of the pennies that didn’t meet my expectations -the shinier the better in my opinion.

Once both the letters and the pennies were dry I did a trial placement of the pennies on the letters. Playing around with the layout I’m happy with how snug the pennies were, leaving the least amount of gaps.

Now that the placement was set, it was time to GLUE!

For the adhesive I used Aleene’s Tacky Glue, an All-Purpose glue that adheres well to many different types of surfaces, and perfect for this project.

One little dab on the back side of the pennies does the trick. The glue does dry clear so if you go a little over board, but not necessary as my final step seals everything in.

After gluing all of the pennies down (and yes I did leave at least one tails side up to drive some of my OCD friends crazy) it only took a few minutes until they seemed to be set on the letter forms.

I chose not to make the edges straight so that the form of the letter would show more.

To seal I used Modge Podge gloss and applied it with a foam brush but any paint brush you have will do.

The layer of Modge Podge takes a few hours to set, but I suggest leaving to dry overnight.

And here it is dry and ready to hang!

The finished letters are about 7-8lbs each so figuring out how to hang them would be my next challenge. My original thought was to use picture hanging hardware but ultimately wanted them to lay flat against the wall. So I scratched that idea.

After a handful of google searches and digging through our junk drawer I found some command strips that I had recently used on a few (and much lighter) picture frames.

The 3M command strips come in a variety of weights. I chose the 12lbs & up just to be safe. I placed 4 strips on the back side of each letter. This seemed to be more than enough. Much to my dismay, they worked!

I’m really happy with the end result. This easy and inexpensive DIY project is definitely one of my favorite pieces in our home. I hope you enjoy it too!

Squeeze the day.

-Jennifer