DIY Ombre Penny Art Project!

DIY Ombre Penny Art Project!

Make a super cool piece of art using less than a dollar's worth of pennies!

Learn how easy it is to change the color of pennies with a couple ingredients you probably already have! 

This fun science experiment turned art is a great science fair project or homeschool activity.

This is a fun craft I did with my kids back in 2012--seriously, so long ago.

Just a few days ago my 19 year old daughter and I were chatting and she told me she always hated projects that used pennies.

I reminder her of this project we did...

She told me she thought it was SUCH a waste of money!
Seriously 🤣 😂 🤣 

We laughed about how cheap of a project it actually was, but her little 8 year old mind thought it was sheer opulence. 

I thought it would be the perfect time to refresh this craft, add brighter photos and send it to the forefront again for more inspiration.

Supplies Needed for Ombre Penny Art:

• Frame (spray painted gold)
• Cardboard to fit inside frame
• Burlap (or other fabric)
• Pennies (96 for this one)
• White Distilled Vinegar
• Regular Salt

Step 1: Penny Science

Get a bunch of pennies--like a dollars worth or so.

They are naturally a wide range of colors...

Sort out the brightest, brownest, blackest, whitest and teal-est ones.

Now, the science.

Take some mid-range colored pennies and put them in a glass dish.

Add 1/4 cup white vinegar and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Immediately they will brighten and become shiny.

Let them soak about 5-10 minutes.

Pull them out and set them on a plastic plate...don't dry them off...

Over the next 2 hours they become slimy looking

and turn very bright turquoise--or verdigris as it is called.

 

Let the pennies dry overnight.

Step 2: Shiny Pennies

Take the shiniest of the pennies and place them in a little bowl.

Add vinegar and salt, as previous step.

Let them soak for 10 minutes, then scrub them with a dish cloth and dry them off, to keep them their absolute shiniest.

Step 3: Frame

Now assemble the frame for the pennies to be displayed on.

Begin by cutting a piece of burlap cloth about 1/2 inch larger than the cardboard piece that fits inside the frame opening.

Hot glue the burlap to the cardboard by wrapping the border around the edge of the cardboard.

Then hot glue the burlap covered cardboard right inside the picture frame so it is firm and secure.

Step 4: Arrangement

Now have the kids find the shiniest of the shiny pennies and place it first on the top.

Decide if you want heads or tails to show.

Continue laying out the pennies in the order of shiny to dark to teal.

The pennies looked pretty brown on the plates overnight, until I picked them up and turned them over! 

Where they touched the plate turned the most vivid turquoise teal!

This process is called verdigris...it's atmospheric oxidation patina that happens on copper or brass!

Once the pennies are arranged in the desired order, just hot glue them directly to the burlap.

This art piece is a really fun statement!

That's it!

I hope you enjoyed this fun homeschool science class activity I did with my 10, 8 and 3 year old so many many years ago in 2012.

We had fun making it and still love the bright turquoise color of these pennies.

Like, Pin and Share!