Valentine Date Bracelet
This looked nice on the bag of Linder ball chocolates.
It’s fun when you can jazz up a Valentine’s day once in a while. It’s not easy to get out of the card-and-candy routine, but this year I spotted an idea I wanted to try. This bracelet has all of the birth years of our kids and grandkids (so far), the year we met, our graduation, and our wedding.
The first thing you need is a pile of pennies. I was lucky to find all fourteen of my dates in such a small pile. The older pennies get naturally more rare, but my pile did have a 1942 wheat-back in it as well as a 1959 and several in the 1960′s. This would be a good project to work on over the year so you could collect them as they show up. A friend or a relative might even allow you to go through their penny piles to look for the older ones.
Once you have them all a three to four hour bath in vinegar with a scrub from an old toothbrush is all it takes to get the tarnish off them. This gets them all about equally shiny. Drilling the holes is next and takes very little time. The ball chain with connectors can be purchased at the big home supply stores by the ceiling fans, and are called extension chain kits. Getting this chain trimmed to fit someone’s wrist is not easy and having a little extra chain is good if you trim it too short. It took me several tries.
The last and most important thing is to give the pennies a clear coat of varnish from a spray can. This will keep them from turning brown to green again, and should keep a bracelet wearer from getting a green wrist.
One more thing we might add to this are some spacer bead between each penny to keep them evenly spaced on the bracelet.
Valentine’s is over for the year but this would be a fun gift for an anniversary or birthday as well.
Happy penny hunting!
February 20th, 2013 at 1:37 pm
What a GREAT idea! Wondering how heavy it would be if we made one for Mom with all of us and the grandkids? Wouldn’t want to incapacitate her arm.
Such a fun idea John!