I made Mr. Krabs' first dollar.

Did you two get paint all over me first dollar?

And then did you draw on it with crayon?!?

The inspiration.

Mr. Krabs' first dollar appears in the season 3 episode of Spongebob Squarepants called "Wet Painters." The basic premise is that Mr. Krabs' most prized possession is the first dollar he ever earned, Spongebob and Patrick accidentally get paint on it, and then Patrick draws on it with crayon to try and fool Mr. Krabs. A perfect example of the show in its prime and lots of memorable quotes.

I love this prop and I've never seen anyone try to accurately recreate it, so I said SCREW IT and did it myself.

The beginning.

The frame started life as a $1 frame from Goodwill. (I actually got three identical frames because I was afraid I would screw up. I surprised myself and got it on the first try!)

(So what I'm saying is that I do have two more frames just asking to be turned into first dollar frames... Just sayin'.)

The pattern.

I drew out the pattern on the back of the frame, but only ended up drawing it on one side. It turned out measuring the sides, dividing them into quarters, and marking those measurements was enough.

First section. This was the first time I'd ever tried carving wood, so I was surprised that it didn't look completely terrible.

Dremel'd out all the "joints."

For a while, I considered using real bamboo and cutting it to make a frame, but real bamboo doesn't really grow at 45º angles.

I made a lot of sawdust.

At this point I was really happy and I decided I was done carving.

A day later, and after some advice from /r/woodworking, I hit the frame with sandpaper...

... and stain!

The stain ended up really bringing out the grain and made it look decidedly less like bamboo... I'm okay with it though because in my head, the frame in the show wasn't made of bamboo either. (45º angles... yadda yadda yadda it's a cartoon whatever)

I designed the dollar in Photoshop, used some default brushes to simulate the light blue primer, and printed it out with a tiny faint line where the crayon would go. Then I traced the line with a real crayon.

The plaque is made out of aluminum tape and and an acetate sheet (like for an overhead projector) and is attached to the frame with brass nails. I "engraved" it by writing on the aluminum with a sharp pencil, and then sanded it until it was flush. I don't think it's possible to read what was actually on the plaque in the show, but I figured "First Dollar" couldn't be too far off.

I screwed up and put a little ding in the plaque, so instead of trying to fix it, I made the ding more exact. I sort of like it. It adds to the weathered look of the piece.

I considered making the joints darker by either painting or burning them, but I was pretty surprised with how decent the stain made everything look, so I'll just leave it all as is for now.

The backing is cross-stitch fabric from the same Goodwill I got the frames from. The back of the fabric has a butterfly pattern printed on it. Thanks Goodwill.

I dunno if you guys want a wallpaper, but here ya go.

I think it'll look quite nice next to my previous Spongebob project!

Thanks for looking!