Piggy Bank

In this instructable I'll show you how I made piggy bank from milk jug. My friend's kids are learning how to save money, so I thought, that this may help them a little.

For this project you will need:
- empty milk jug
- paint
- felt (I had some pieces left)
- wooden sticks (pop sickle kind)
- glue gun
- needle, thread
- brushes
- time

You probably want your piggy bank to last for a while. To make sure that paint won't fall off, I used sandpaper to scratch jug a little. That will make the paint to stick better. I used black paint, just because I saw a picture of black pig, which was my inspiration for this project. On my jug there was a circle part that was concave. I decided to paint it white, so later I could write something in there.

In this step I prepared eyes, tail and ears from felt. When paint was drying, I started to saw together felt pieces. Luckily, I had some "leftover" felt pieces in needed colors.

I supported myself with some pictures of pigs, to make it more piggy :)
I wanted to make tail a little curved, to do so I pulled thread more when sawing it. That made the felt pieces tighter, which caused it to curve.
Eyes I made simply from 2 white and 2 black circles.

Felt is not so thick, so be careful with this step!
On the bottom of the bottle there was long concave part- perfect for tail. I simply applied glue along this part and put tail on the glue. Carefully I pressed the tail in the glue. so it would stay there, and voila!
Then I figured where I wanted to place eyes and ears. Same as with tail: put glue, add part, carefully press in, done!

I applied 3 layers of black paint, to make sure "bottle" color won't be noticeable. On my recycle bin I've found 4 caps from water bottles- I used them for piggy feet. For nose I used milk jug cap. I painted them pink, as a contrast to black body. And again, I applied at least 3 layers of paint.

To avoiding tilting of piggy bank when it gets to heavy, I used pop sickle sticks, to make a base. I glued 4 sticks together, then glued it to the bottom of piggy bank. I filled "feet" with glue, to make it heavier. After glue was dry I glued it on the wooden sticks, really close to pig's body. That will prevent from tilting, when piggy will be full of coins.

Lastly I cut the whole for coins and I painted nostrils on the cap. My friend's daughter name starts with T, so I put it in the white circle place. But you could write "Oink" or whatever you'd like.

And done! Now all I need are coins to put inside the piggy bank. When it will be full, all you have to do is twist the nose to empty the bank.
Oink! :)