Giving money creatively

On my previous blog I shared how I gave one of the young boys in our family a gift of money. That is shown here along with an alpaca fence sitter that hubby cut and assembled and I painted. Adults in our extended family don't usually exchange birthday gifts but when we do, they are fun.

The children of my nieces are all great kids and while I do keep in touch with their parents and grandma (my sis-in-law), I don't see the kids often enough to know what they already have and what they might want for birthday gifts. I've resorted to giving them cash. I sort of feel this is a cop out, but kids love to shop for themselves and their moms aren't making exchanges because three relatives bought the same toy or the wrong size shirt. There is certainly nothing wrong with putting cash or a check in a card, but that isn't me. I have a reputation to uphold, even if only in my own mind. 

This weekend we will be going to a birthday party for a young man who is turning five. His cousin will be there and since she didn't get a birthday gift from us yet, I prepared something for her as well.

For the young man, I used small pieces of tape to make a string of dollar bills. The bill on one end had a small hole in the end, perfect for attaching decorative twine that ran around the axle of a small car.

I folded the bills back and forth inside a small box that I covered with Kraft paper. 

With the top of flip top box tucked into the base, the car was placed on top. 

This black ribbon with the white stitching reminded me a blacktop highway, perfect for the tying up the package with a car attached.

The E is his initial, the 5 is his magic number this birthday. I think he will enjoy pulling that car off the top with all those ones attached. 

The young lady is a preteen, going on 20-something as girls often seem to do. I thought I'd give her something a little more sophisticated. I started with a Prima Donna stamped image called Lorena.

The complete image is on the left. The middle is what I used, cutting out the upper layer of skirt and leaving a bit of the sides. On the right is a piece of acetate (from a package of clear cling stamps) with the folds of the skirt drawn on with a Sharpie marker.

Prismacolor pencils were used to color Lorena. The sides of her skirt are light green but it doesn't show up well in this photo.

I used the cut out part of the skirt as a template and cut out that portion on a card. With the card closed, I played around with how to place the bills on the side of the card. The cash would become the print fabric of Lorena's skirt.

The cash was lightly taped in place. I used a tape runner to close the card, avoiding the bottom area where the money is. The card won't actually be opened until my great-niece is ready to remove the cash. Whether that happens immediately or after she gets home is up to her.

Here is the finished card. I added clear glitter accents to the bottom of her skirt, around the neckline and her headband. Before attaching Lorena to the front of the card I used Tim Holtz stencils (Burlap and Jute) with Color Box chalks (stamp pads) to add a little color and design to the background. The greeting was done with Stampin Up punches, oval and scalloped oval.

I hope the kids enjoy their gifts as much as I enjoyed making them.