In today’s post: Want a fun way to give cash for graduation or a birthday? Try making your own money bouquet. It’s easy to put together with just a few supplies. This is a DIY gift anyone will love!
Fun Money Gift Idea
A money bouquet is a fun, unique way to give cash! It feels more personal than handing over a check and is the perfect gift for graduation, birthdays, weddings, and more. You can make this money bouquet in 30-45 minutes using approximately 25 bills of any denomination, so how much you gift is completely customizeable.
Related: 29 Funny + Devious Money Gift Ideas
Supplies
This is what you need to make a DIY money bouquet (you should be able to find all these supplies at the dollar store or any big box store):
- Cash: I used 25 bills to make the money bouquet you see in these photos, but you can use more or less if desired. You can use all the same denomination of bills, or vary it like I did. Ten dollar bills are a slightly different color than the smaller bills, so you can include some for variety or use all the same kind for a more uniform look.
- Scotch Tape: I used regular Scotch tape, not the removeable kind. It holds well but is still easy to take off the bills when it’s time to take the bouquet apart.
- Bamboo Skewers
- Pipe Cleaners (aka Chenille Stems)
- Faux Florals
- Items for wrapping the bouquet (not pictured): I used a large piece of brown paper, some tissue paper, and some ribbon, all purchased from Dollar Tree.
How to Make a Money Bouquet
Making a money bouquet is really easy! Each bill is taped onto a skewer and then turned into a petal, and you can combine the petals however you’d like to make flowers for your bouquet. I’ll walk you step by step through the process I used to make this bouquet.
Idea Source: My bouquet was inspired by KK House on youtube. Check out her channel for lots more money bouquet ideas.
Create Petals
For each petal you will use one skewer and one dollar bill. You will also need three pieces of scotch tape, each about an inch long. Start with the bill face up on a table. Fold it in half and crease it, so when you open it back up you can see the exact center of the bill. Place a skewer onto the crease, about halfway up the bill as shown below. Place a piece of tape over the skewer, letting about a quarter inch of the tape extend past the end of the bill. (Tape is shown by the blue rectangles in the photos below.) Flip the bill over and place another piece of tape on the back of the bill in the same place, again letting the tape extend past the end of the bill.
Flip the bill face side up again. Grab the two bottom corners and bring them together to touch, as you see in the photo below. Pull the corners together to create a petal shape, and secure the bill by taping across it as shown by the blue rectangle:
You have created a petal that looks like this:
NOTE: I taped the pointed ends of the skewers to the bills so the flat ends would be at the bottom of the “flower stems”. This is because I gathered the flowers together with pipe cleaners to create a bouquet. If you would like to stick the ends of the flowers into floral foam instead, tape the flat ends of the skewers to the bills so the pointed ends will be at the bottom. Using floral foam can help make your arrangement very tidy, but also means there is a brick of floral foam at the bottom of it (which can be covered with a pretty wrapping).
Combine Petals into Flowers
Once you have created five sets of petals, put them together to make a flower. I wrapped pipe cleaners around the skewer stems to make each flower. I also placed a small sprig of faux floral in the center of each flower.
For a bouquet like mine, repeat until you have created three flowers. Then make petals from the other ten bills, but do not combine them into flowers.
Assemble the Bouquet
Place the three flowers together and use a pipe cleaner to secure all the stems together at the bottom.
Holding the bouquet at the bottom with one hand, add in the other petals around the outside edges with the other hand. Secure with more pipe cleaners. Add additional faux florals and secure with additional pipe cleaners. Adjust as needed until you are happy with how the bouquet looks. This is how mine looked from the top:
And this is how it looks from the side. You can see that all the stems are secured together with multiple pipe cleaners.
Wrap the Money Bouquet
Finally, you can wrap the money flowers to make it look even more like a traditional bouquet. I cut a square of brown paper that was about 22 inches x 22 inches. Then I cut tissue paper squares of 11 inches x 11 inches. I overlapped the tissue paper on the brown paper near a corner, as you can see below, then placed the bouquet down on the papers.
To wrap the bouquet, start by folding over the right side, allowing the top edge to fold down as you do so. Secure with a piece of tape. Then fold up the bottom corner. Finally, fold over the left side, again letting the top edge fold down. Secure with more tape, and then tie with a ribbon.
Once the bouquet is completed, you can place it inside a mason jar or vase to display it.
Money Bouquet
Supplies
- 25 Dollar Bills
- 25 Skewers
- Scotch Tape
- Pipe Cleaners
- Faux Florals
- Paper for Wrapping like butcher paper, brown paper, tissue paper, etc
- Ribbon
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Instructions
- For each petal you will use one skewer and one dollar bill. You will also need three pieces of scotch tape, each about an inch long. Start with the bill face up on a table. Fold it in half and crease it, so when you open it back up you can see the exact center of the bill. Place a skewer onto the crease, about halfway up the bill as shown below. Place a piece of tape over the skewer, letting about a quarter inch of the tape extend past the end of the bill. (Tape is shown by the blue rectangles in the photos below.) Flip the bill over and place another piece of tape on the back of the bill in the same place, again letting the tape extend past the end of the bill.
- Flip the bill face side up again. Grab the two bottom corners and bring them together to touch, as you see in the photo below. Pull the corners together to create a petal shape, and secure the bill by taping across it as shown by the blue rectangle:
- You have created a petal. Repeat until you have 25 petals.
- Place five sets of petals together to make a flower and wrap pipe cleaners around the skewer stems to secure. Place a small sprig of faux floral in the center of each flower.
- Create three flowers. Place them together and use a pipe cleaner at the bottom of the stems to secure them in a bunch.
- Holding the bouquet at the bottom with one hand, add in the other petals around the outside edges with the other hand. Secure with more pipe cleaners. Add additional faux florals and secure with additional pipe cleaners. Adjust as needed until you are happy with how the bouquet looks.
- Cut a large square of paper and three smaller squares of tissue paper. Overlap the tissue paper near one corner of the larger piece of paper and place the bouquet over the tissue paper.
- Fold in the paper from the right, then up from the bottom, then in from the left, wrapping the bouquet. Secure with tape and tie with a ribbon.
- Bouquet can be set into a mason jar or vase for display.
Tips
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Deborah says
Awesome idea. They look great. Thanks for sharing!
Tiffany says
How much money did you use in total and what were your increments?
Autumn says
I used approximately 25 bills, in a variety of increments ($1, $2, $5, and $10). So you can vary the size of the bills in order to get the total you’d like to give!
Phoebe says
What kind of tape did you use that will not tear the bills?
Autumn says
I used regular Scotch tape. As long as you remove it carefully it does not damage the bills.
Victoria Nguyen says
hello! can’t wait to try this 🙂 may i please ask how tall are the skewers? 12inch?
thank you!
Autumn says
Yes, I used 12 inch skewers!
Vernon M Taliaferro says
this was awesome and appreciated