this little piggy went to the bank

Gah, I love a good piggy bank. I have about 4 in my house. I guess it goes back to when I was little. I loved emptying the piggy bank/cup of change and counting the money. Just for fun. I blame it on having an accountant as a parent.. ha! 

I found this glorious piggy bank when I was in college and had to have it. Of course this was back when I had money on my Tiger card (a card we used at Auburn for multiple things, but the best was having money on it to use as a debit card to go shopping at all the boutiques downtown), and I didn't mind dropping $20 on it.

via

I did some research on this piglet, and it's made by Pamela Barsky. It's actually cast from an authentic Mid-century Modern mold, which is probably why I love it so much! When you buy one, ol' Pamela puts an envelope of money in the box, and you can get anywhere from a few cents to a hundred dollars! This probably aided in my decision to purchase him. If I remember correctly, I got $0.16 when I bought it. Wah wahhh. 

It comes in white and pea green. I bought the white one, and he's been living on my bedside table for years. 

Now imagine my surprise when I found one at the thrift store for A DOLLAR! Someone had mutilated the paint job, so of course I had to rescue it and restore it to its proper glory. 

The only downside was that it was missing the stopper. 

It had clearly been painted and fired in a kiln, so it had a slick ceramic finish, but I didn't sand. I just jumped right in with some chalkboard paint! 

I did several light coats with the spray chalkboard paint. It covered very nicely! I was kind of shocked! 

There was still the issue of the stopper.. 

So I went to the dollar store, and found another piggy bank and stole the stopper!

I mean, I bought the piggy bank and stole it from that pig to use on my chalk board piggy.. There was no actual theft involved. 

Side note: Do you think there's a factory somewhere that produces all the piggy bank stoppers? Or is there a piggy bank hole standard? This is what I thought of during this project.

When you paint something with chalkboard paint, you have to cover the entire area with chalk, then wipe it off before it's ready to write on. 

This kind of made me sad, because the piggy was now tinted gray. 

But he was write-ready! 

I love it! 

Anyone else have this little piglet? 

Diesel's fur almost looks chalk ready as well. haha! 

Not Cotton, although I'm sure her furball self would make a good eraser. 

This weekend was project-palooza, so I have more goodies to show you this week!