Foreign Coins: DIY Projects

I don’t know about you but I love travelling – I can’t get enough of it. It’s always exhilarating to go to a brand new, exotic place, and take in all the local culture. This includes using foreign currency.

Although it can be difficult at times to mentally figure out the approximate conversion to Canadian dollars, it’s also lots of fun to use fascinating looking coins of all different shapes, weights, colours, and sizes. The only problem when coming home is that you usually end up with a handful of coins in small denominations that you simply couldn’t use up. So what do you do with these unusual coins?

Mine have been sitting in a jar, out of sight. I’ve always been intrigued by decorations that display aspects of travelling, and thought that perhaps I could make something out of all the extra change I collected throughout my travels.

Recently, I created magnets using some of my foreign coins. This was pretty easy.

If you have old magnets, for example one with an expired calendar on it, you can cut it up into small pieces so they fit onto the back of the coin. Then you just glue the magnet to the coin. I used a hot glue gun but other craft glues may also work. You can also use inexpensive magnetic tape, instead of glue. This might be a good idea if the magnets you currently have are not very strong or the coins you’re using are heavy. The hardest part about this little craft is selecting which side of the coin you’d like to display! My magnets look something like this:

Photo Credit: Tamara

Another idea that I recently found and am really excited to try, is to use an old vase and decorate it completely with foreign coins. This example from Bob Vila shows what the vase looks like with only pennies but you could easily replicate the idea with foreign coins. A great thing about this craft is it is not very complicated, and the result looks fantastic. Depending on what background you want, you can spray paint the vase to a different colour before gluing the coins. In this example, the vase was spray painted black, which contrasts nicely with the pennies and gives it an elegant, modern look. This is a superb idea especially for those Canadians who may have a surplus of pennies lying around since the cent was phased out. 

Do you have any craft ideas to use extra foreign coins? Share them in the comments section.

                                                                                                                                 -Tamara (Volunteer)