Papier Mâché Piggy Bank

You Will Need

- PROJECT BUDGET
- Almost Nothing

How to - the papier-mâché piggy bank in 10 steps
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Ok Folks, I promised and here we go: in this post I´ll show you how to make a papier-mâché piggy bank. Some of you might recall this from your childhood days, so, if you have improvements or better ways to do it, don´t hesitate! I wanna know!

About piggy banks:
Piggy banks or coin banks are quiet common here in Germany, I got my first one aged 4 to save money aunts and my Granny´s rummy friends sliped me from time to time, and when I became 6 we bought a new bicycle from this money (I´m quiet sure, Granny added the most, but it was the concept of learning how to save for something you cannot affort right away.) Nowerdays I had one, where I put all the change in and saved for my new Necchi.

So much for the idea of having a piggy bank, if you did not know these ones before. The one you see here was a birthday gift (another one, I see now ;) for my mom in law. This piggy dreams of a particular bed by a swedish funiture store we all know ;)

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read the instructions of the wallpaper paste carefully and prepare a small amount of it as per instructions. You won´t need more than 1/2 cup at once.
blow up at least 2 ballons to the size your piggy should have at the end (1 ballon is a backup, if the first one bursts somehow ;) )

brush the paste on one half of one balloon and stick newspaper snippets on the gluey parts. brush more paste over the glued snippets and put the balloon onto the flowerpot to let the paste and paper dry. Go on with the back up balloon.
if you don´t mind to get sticky fingers, go on with sticking snippets to the other half of each balloon.

let dry for at least 30 minutes, if the paper is dry again on most parts, repeat steps 2&4. Go on and put layer over layer, untill you have a good feeling about the thickness of the papier-mâché. I made 7 layers, because I wanted to make sure it won´t rip later.

This is the time consuming part of this project, of course, you can speed it up by gluing several layers at once, but then the paper can rip during the drying process. Again, I wanted to play safe here (at least it should be a birthday present and I had a timeline to meet ;) If you want to do this with your kids, maybe it´s worth to take the (honestly not that big) risk, just to keep the little ones interested and active in this.
after you have enough layers and a dry papier-mâché balloon, cut out 4 feet out of an egg carton. trim them to make sure, the piggy later won´t have any unballancing issues. Then decide, how long its nozzle should be and cut it from the loo paper roll. Using the craft glue stick the feet and the nozzle to the ballon, let dry and, if necessary, use the tape for more firmness.
to adjust the feet and nozzle prepare another small amount of wallpaper paste and newspaper snippets. stick them as described in step 2 - 4 on feet and nozzle until the edges are soft.
Using more snippets mold the nozzle more detailed and also mold the ears. To mold one ear I started with 2 sqare shaped snippets, which I glued together to the half, so that I got a triangle. This triangle I sticked to piggy´s head and tighten it with mor glued-on snippets. due to the still wet paste it is possible to mold the ear very good. Repeat the steps for the 2nd ear. If you are happy with piggy´s shape, let the little one dry completely.
paint the piggy as you like and let dry completely.
varnish the piggy with 2 or 3 layers of clear varnish spray, again let dry completely. Use varnish spray very carefully and not near children and pets, the best is to use it outside, at least keep the windows wide open!
using a craft knife carefully cut a slot for coins (and notes ;) ) into piggy´s neck. If you don´t want to make a noise with a bursting ballon, just stich into piggy with a pin and wait a while, the air will pass off qietly and after this cut out the slot.
The empty balloon will stay inside piggy´s belly anyway, but that´s ok.
the pigtail you can make out of paper, pipecleaners or a wire glued to thick fabric like I did and glue it on piggy´s bottom.

Idea: you could prepare some piggies for your kids and let them do only the painting.

Decorate you piggy bank as you like.

*Done*

This was the piggy bank how to. I really would love to see your piggies, so if you consider making one, don´t hesitate to send me a picture of the result. I´ll publish them on www.chaosconcept.blogspot.com as well, if you allow me to.

Thanks for you attention :)

Mone