It's a money bouquet

My oldest sister is having her 50th birthday next week and my mom and I were wondering what to send her since she lives in Oregon...far, far away from us. My mom was trying to find out the cost of calling up a local florist there in her town, if it would be cheaper and still unique in style, but it seemed to her it wasn't the right gift.

That night I was looking up something and got sidetracked on paper roses from a previous blackhole I was in the night before and found a site for instructions on a dollar bill rose bouquet. I called my mom the next day to tell her about this simple crafty idea. She seemed very interested and even got out a dollar bill and started manipulating per my instructions over the phone. I mentioned that it would probably take 30 minutes to put together a rose of 10 dollar bills to make "50" for her birthday. The next minute my mom tells me she'll send me money to go in with me to make the bouquet. I thought I was giving her the idea to make it.

I raced to the bank before it closed to get some money and that night I made up the money roses with what I had on hand. Bamboo skewers, green florist wire and florist tape. It wasn't looking very bouquet-like to me so I ran to my paper stash and grabbed some yellow paper designated for doing lapbooks with my preschooler and started cutting paper. I worked on it mostly the next morning and rushed it to the mail center before my toddlers afternoon nap.

I can't wait any longer to show you, so what do you think?

I added some silk hydrangea leaves for a smoothing texture. I still didn't like it with the two colors (money and yellow) so I went to my silk flower stash and found some blue flowers and added them. The blue flowers and hydrangea leaves were trimmed and attached to bamboo skewers using green florist tape.

I still wanted more dimension so I found some white nylon mesh I cut up for a kitchen dish scrubbie and weaved that through the arrangement. I ran up to my craft area and went to work on a florist style cardette (fancy for card holder).

I think it came out pretty well.

The whole bouquet was finally finished around 1pm., so I rounded up my tired kids and ran down to the mail center and had the bouquet packaged up for me. I panicked when I got in the car and was halfway home when I realized that I had just left an open amount of cash disguised as flowers with a couple of strangers to "secure" the gift in packaging. I said a little prayer and then I called my mom to verify that as a business handling federal packages, they weren't likely to pick some flowers out of my bouquet and take them home. That's why I said little prayer, O ye of little faith.


Details:
Paper: US bills in $1 and $5 denominations, Wasau Paper Astrobrights 24lb. yellow and dark yellow paper, black and yellow cardstock (for bouquet card)
Stamps: SU Elegant Greetings
Ink: Versamark, SU black Emboss Powder
Embellishments: silk hydrangea leaves, silk blue flowers, SU yellow grosgrain ribbon, white nylon netting
Other: Bamboo skewers, green floral wire, green florist tape, ceramic flower vase, florist foam

PS After typing this all in I found some other more lifelike directions at the following places.

How to Make a Money Rose (Has links about "is it illegal to mutilate money" at the very bottom.)
Craft: Dollar Bill Rose

The link at the beginning of this post is very easy. The other instructions look like they would take a bit longer to construct so if you were in a hurry like me you might consider the instructions from Craft at Home.