I’ve got a big treat for you today!!! My uber talented friend from Stow and Tell U is visiting today. Amy never fails to amaze me with her creative projects. She blogs about everything from craft projects to travel. Make sure you head over to her site and give her some love. Speaking of love, I am so in love with her Puggy Banks. They would make sure a fun summer craft for the kiddos!
Hi All. I’m Amy and I blog over at Stow and Tell U. I’m so glad to be here, today, while Shanna is off in D.C.
Shanna and I have been blogging buddies now, for over a year. Her talent with a paint brush on furniture never ceases to amaze me, not to mention that every time I stop by to see what she is up to, I’m almost guaranteed to get a good laugh while reading one of her funny day-in-the-life tales.
When it comes to her pets, though, she doesn’t mess around. If you follow her you know that she is an avid promoter of pet care, safety and humane treatment.
That is why I knew that sharing the following project would be perfect because it is not as much about what I did with these plastic soda bottles, but why I made them, that made this a really special project to me where pets are concerned.
In a nut shell, I turned those plastic bottles into puggy banks. Kinda like a piggy bank… but with a pug.
And when it was all said and done, I teamed up with a group of other bloggers to do a charity craft and furniture blog tour to benefit sheltered animals, which you can check out here, if you would like.
To make this cute little puggies, I followed a tutorial on re-purposed soda bottle piggy banks from Martha Stewart, which you can find here.
Basically, I just changed up a few steps to turn the plastic soda bottle from a pig to a pug. Before I know it, I felt like I had a pack of new pet pug dogs on my table top.
I almost wanted to give them names….
How to Make a Re-Purposed Soda Bottle Puggy Bank:
Supplies
- 2 Liter Soda Bottle – cleaned and dried
- 4 Empty spools of thread
- Hot glue gun
- Masking tape
- Torn newspaper strips (make sure 1/3 of the strips have black writing only)
- Flour and water at 1:1 ratio mixture
- Craft paint ( I used Martha Stewart’s Multi-Surface Craft Paint in colors:Wedding Cake, Acorn and Black)
- Decoupage ( I used Mod Podge Matte)
- Brown paper bags or craft paper
- Black and red construction paper
- Black felt
- Cork – large enough for coins (I purchased mine at the local hardware store)
- Thin tipped craft paint brush (for the face details)
- Sanding block
- Craft knife
- Black marker
- Hand held hole punch (optional)
- File folder or thin card board (for the puggy ears #8 on template)
- Puggy Bank face and ears template (see below)
Steps
1-With a marker draw a line down the center of the bottle, making the top of the puggy head line up with one of the bumps at the bottom of the bottle.
2-Hot glue the empty spools to the bottom of the bottle for legs; and then tape them down to secure.
3-Cut out all of the pieces on the Puggy Bank face template.
4-Using the template piece #8, trace cut out the ears from a file folder or thin card board.
5-Using template pieces #1, 5, 6, and 7 trace and cut out from the black construction paper.
6-Using template pieces #4 and 8 trace and cut out from paper bag or brown craft paper.
7-Fold ear template on dotted line and tape the ears to the bottle.
8-Remove the soda bottle cap, scrunch up a piece of newspaper and tape it around the soda bottle nozzle to create the puggy bottom.
9-Twist 1-1/2 pieces of news paper together to create a tail that starts thicker and gets thinner; and then tape the thicker portion the the back- top side of the puggy bottom. Add more tape, making sure to cover the bottle opening.
10-Continue to twist the tail and wrap with masking tape until you have a tail shape. Cut off excess.
11-Mix up a flour and water mixture until no lumps.
12-Dip newspaper strips into mixture and start applying. Apply one coat and let dry overnight.
13-Apply second coat and let dry again.
14-Apply the third coat using the black print-only newspaper strips. Let dry. To speed up drying I used a hair dryer, but you can also use a fan like Martha suggests.
15-Cut out circular hole in bottom of puggy for the cork, making sure hole is smaller than the largest portion of the cork; and cut slit in the top of the puggy for inserting money.
16-Mix paint 2:1 Wedding Cake and Acorn; add 1 part decoupage and a few drops of water and apply with paint brush, two light coats. Let dry.
17-Apply a coat of decoupage only.
18-For the nose (piece#6) fold width-wise and punch a hole using hole punch to make nostrils, or cut out small hole if a hole punch is not available.
19-Using decoupage, apply pieces #1 and 2 to face, and then and then #3 and 4, and then #5 and 6. Finally attach pieces #7 to ears. Smooth all pieces down with damp fingers to get good adhesion on the bumpy surface. Let Dry. Apply second coat decoupage, smooth down some more, if needed and let dry.
20-Add two white dots for the eyes and black dots as whiskers, let dry. re-coat with decoupage if desired.
21-Dab black craft paint on the bottoms of the paws and around the edges of the paws.
22-Cut out black felt pieces for the bottom of the paws, attach with decoupage – TIP: Trim off a small inside section of felt on inner part of the paws to make the puggy bank more sturdy.
These guys turned out cuter than I had expected. With a little help from some decoupage, paint and construction paper, the bottom part of a soda bottle ends up looking quite like a pug’s face. Aren’t they cute??
As much as I didn’t want to give them away, these puggy banks were donated to our local animal shelter which inevitably helped to buy supplies for the care of the animals in the shelter.
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If you would like a free print-out of the face template or the instructions,
you can find both of them here, in my original post, near the bottom of the page.
FACE TEMPLATE
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Shanna, thank you so much for having me by. I hope that you are enjoying your trip. I’ve never been to Washington D.C. so I’m really hoping that you will share a few vacation photos with us, soon.
I hope you all will come on by and see me at Stow and Tell U sometime soon.
XOXO ~ Amy
Amy @ StowandTellu says
Thank you so much for having me over today, Shanna. I hope you are having a blast in DC 🙂
Shanna says
Thank you so much for taking over while I was gone!