DIY Gift-Giving: Birthday Dough

Sometimes the perfect gift really is money. Throwing some cash into a greeting card is a simple but let’s face it, rather boring way to give money. I love nothing more than putting a smile on someone’s face when giving a gift and money in a card just won’t cut it. A 10-year old appreciates something with a little bit more creativity! I decided for my cousin’s birthday recently to give her some birthday dough. It’s a simple way to spice up the gift of cold hard cash with a nifty little poem to boot. 

Birthday “Dough”

 

Items Required

• Small clear bag, ideally cellophane but a ziploc bag can work in a pinch
• Cardstock in any colour; I like green because it’s the colour of money!
• Curling ribbon
• Scissors
• Stapler
• Cash! I like giving 10 x $10 bills

How-To

1. Cut strips of ribbon into about 4″ lengths – enough for the number of bills you have. Roll up the bills (I like to make sure the denomination is showing on the outside) then wrap with a piece of ribbon knotted around the bill. Take your scissors and curl the ends. Do this for all the bills and put them into your bag.
2. Cut some excess ribbon and curl them with your scissors. I did about 10 ribbon curls to help fill up the space in the bag.
3. In a word processing file, enter the poem below. Choose a fun font. Measure the width of your bag and set your margins for slightly wider than the bag, adjusting the font size as necessary to fit in the margins. Make sure to enter the text further down the page so that once printed, you can fold the cardstock over the top of the bag and staple it on. Print, cut, fold, attach. Voila!

Poem

Chocolate chip cookies with yummy icing

Are oh-so-tasty and very enticing.

We set out to bake you a dozen or two,

But we ran out of time so then what to do?

Instead of the cookies, we tied with a bow,

Your very own serving of birthday “dough”.

Love, (insert names here)