Disney crafts with pressed pennies and Disney Pins by Dealing with Disney

Here I will talk about what I did with little trinkets brought home from Disney over the years!

Want a good budget friendly souvenir?

Try the pressed pennies or Pin trading!

Here I will discuss both!

Pressed pennies and what to do with them.
There are so many options.. Well not too many that I could think of. Lol
Some people place them in the plastic coin pocketed sleeves and store them in a binder.

Some people frame them in so many different ways.

And some just get shoved in a drawer.. that is where mine have been.

I decided to pull them out and actually do something with them.
First I needed to clean them. I read different things about how to do this and it seemed the best thing that worked for me was to scrub them with a toothbrush in ketchup and then in baking soda.. I dropped them all in a bowl of ketchup. I took one out at a time to scrub, dipped it to rinse off in a bowl of water and dropped it into the baking soda/water paste mix. Once I did all this, I took each one from the last mixture, scrubbed again and rinsed off then laid out to dry.
It was tedious and annoying.

I saw so many framing ideas for the pennies; mickey head silhouettes shaped from the pennies, hot air balloon design made from pennies from UP or just a hodgepodge of pennies placed in a frame. You can google or pinterest to see SO many options.
I even wonder if someone would ever make a table with pressed pennies lacquered on a table top similar to how some do the beer bottle caps.. I thought this would be a great conversation piece. I am NOT this handy however lol..

I opted for cheap and simple.

Luckily, I still had an extra free frame (an old framed mirror) I was able to use. I Removed the mirror. I just used the back of the frame as my flat cover, placed the design paper I selected on it with glue. Made simple clouds from another design paper. Bought some cute travel stickers and glued the pennies on. Simple and done.
I didn’t have a huge collection of pennies as I know many do.
If I ever did get more pennies and brave enough, I can easily remove from the frame I made and create the lacquered table.

Cost: free frame, Paper ($3.00), Sticker pack ($3.00), glue ($5.00) for total of $11.00

You can create your own or buy a custom display from Etsy. 

I would SO love to see other designs!!
Tips for carrying your coins inside the park for your pressed pennies.
Use a plastic container (small tubular ones) that hold the mini-M&M’s. Place two quarters and a penny in (repeat the pattern). That way, there is no digging around for the coins needed.
Make sure to get clean shiny pennies to start with. Pretty hard to clean pressed dirty pennies back to original shine.

Now on the Disney Pins

finally time to pull these out of the drawer and do something with them. 

How do I get them and what to do with them!

Disney Pin trading has been a fun activity for a LONG time now. Guests trade with other guests and Guests will trade with cast members. Almost all cast members will have a pin to trade with. They will also never turn down a trade. 

Options: many will buy pins off E-bay prior to their trips. Many sell lots of them. Yes, some may be fake and many are the real deal. It can be hard to tell. The lots are usually in an assortment and you never know what you may get. Keep the ones you may end of liking and trade the others OR trade them all. 

To buy them at the park, you can count on spending $7 and up to $25.00 for each pin. 

Guests will wear them on vests, hats, lanyards, totes or carry in a book. It is all up to the guest how they like to keep them. The best place to trade them is at Disney Springs by the Pin store. 

But what to do once home?

There are so many options; Use as thumb tacks to hold pictures or what nots on cork boards. 

Frame them in an adorable display of your liking

Clip off the pin and turn into a magnet

Hang your lanyard with the pins displayed on them. 

stick in a drawer until your next round of trading?

Make a lacquered table top displaying your pins (see reference to bottle caps) could easily do with pins as well. 

I chose a pin board. I found two framed mirrors on local FB marketplace (free). 

The opening is 9.5”x9.5” which worked perfect for my small collection. 

Materials: Two sheets design paper $3., glue $4, stickers $4, cork board $8. (4 pack) and magnet sheets $3. 

My frame put together cost me. $19. Not bad. I looked at different ideas online. 

The one I chose came together for me when looking around in store with what I had and options I saw. I had a Mickey chip dish I used to trace the Mickey head. 

One pin I snipped off the back and attached a magnet sheet. I wished I used a button magnet. Would have worked better. But still turned out fine. 

Magnet I made from a pin