Blessings - Found Money Jar Piggy Bank Craft

I found these cute jars at Rue 21 a few weeks back. You can see a post about them here on my blog.

I was saving the jars to give to the girls at Easter but while cleaning Princess Five's room, she said she likes collecting coins and wanted to have a few coin jars at college. I thought she saw my post and was looking for one of the jars. When I asked her about looking at my blog, she said she hadn't viewed it.

I pulled out one of the jars and she said she loved it all except for the "eye" at the top of the jar. I removed the eye using a straight razor and some fingernail polish remover and she was excited about it. 

She had a jar that was one she and her friends made in Jr. high to put coins in and it was full of pennies she has collected. She had a piggy bank that was full of all coins other than pennies and talked about taking taking them to college. I joked about her carrying around 10 lbs of coins for the next four years and suggested that she let me cash the coins in at the bank and she could start over for college.She let me take them to the bank and she had $79.72 in coins. She was happy about that as she needed some money to spend on her trips coming up for choir and graduation. 

She told me she wanted holes cut in the top and wanted a larger one for other coins and to use the smaller one for pennies. I told her I could cut a new top for her "penny" jar as they used a knife to cut the hole when they made it in Jr. High and it was a scary hole. 

I pulled out my dremel and cut a hole in the top of the messed up one to see if  I could cut them better. I learned that it was easy to do but be careful and always wear eye protection. I traced a hole on the top of the mason jar lid using Sharpie Pens. I cut it using a cutting / sanding disk on the dremel. 

I show on the video how it works. Be careful not to let the base of the dremel drag on the top of the lid or it will make scratches. If you pull the side of the sanding disc along the bottom / inside once you have cut the hole in the lid, you can leave it smooth so that there aren't any rough edges. This is better explained on the video.

I think it would be really cute to make these for a young womens group, girls scouts, boy scouts, church camp, girls camp or any other kids church group. You could have someone cut words in vinyl with a cricket cutter and make anything you wanted on the front. I thought it would be cute to make a "Mission savings" jar, "Camp Savings," "Blessing jar" or a"Tithing" jar.  
 
Princess Five was super excited about the jars that I made and is excited to take the set to college and start collecting coins again. Tonight she put coins in them and told me "thanks" for making them and was excited about putting her first coins in as she will soon be taking them to college.