Coins always remind me of my Father. He loves to collect them and even has a few ancient coins found in a Spanish construction site that date back several hundred years. The tooth fairy loved to leave me interesting Spanish currency for my Dad to tell me about and I knew about wooden nickels long before my first history class. At our apartment in Spain, my Dad had a very special blue lock box for valuable things.
Every time he took something out of the safe, he would also bring out a chocolate gold coin for me. As far as I was concerned, the chocolate coins were just as important as the passports and money locked inside.
While transporting furniture during the big move last month, I spied the little box sitting on a stack of boxes. It was rusty and forgotten, the keys lost years ago. I took it to my Dad, and he said I was welcome to keep it. We sat at a picnic table chatting and enjoying the sun as I attempted to pick the lock with a bobby pin. And, guess what? After maybe thirty minutes of picking, I actually got it to open; I have witnesses. If I had only known this was possible as a child, I would have eaten enough chocolate coins to fall into a sugar coma! The contents were a little disappointing: just a few old keys and a handful of Buffalo nickels.
He told me that I was welcome to have the nickels as long as I didn't do anything damaging to them (What? Me? Damage things? Come on). For his birthday, I used one of the coins to make a key chain- in a non damaging way. I pulled the red plastic out of these game pieces and wrapped the remaining rings with embroidery thread. I held them together, glued more thread between them with a small metal ring, and viola!
With interesting feathers, I now have a gorgeous unharmed buffalo nickel key chain! I will be boxing it up with some chocolate coins and sending it home.
Happy birthday, Dad!
This is my very favorite photo of the two of us: walking down the isle on my wedding day.
Really cool! It's hard to believe there are people like you who come up with these amazing things! And I always love the photos too - the way they're set up. It all seems so effortless! As always, I'm jealous of your talent!
ReplyDeleteAwww, thank you :) I really love to do this. If I could do nothing all day except make things and blog about them, I'd be so happy :)
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