Graduation Gift Idea: Money Book

What graduate wouldn't want to receive some cold hard cash as a graduation gift?!? I have a brother and a brother-in-law graduating from High School this year, so I decided to forgo the typical card and check combination, and do something slightly more creative this year. I sort of stole the idea from MS. She has some holiday money books that she created a while back, that served as inspiration. The first thing I thought when I saw the holiday money books was that they would be a cute graduation gift- if they were made to look like a composition notebook. These are really very easy to make.


Start with your supply gathering. You will need:

• Ribbon- about 12 inches
  
• Composition Notebook- they sell these at every
  office supply store


• White Cardstock


• Glue- Acid Free Rubber Cement would be ideal
  for this. I just used Elmer's Craft glue, and it worked fine- just took longer to dry than the Rubber Cement would.


• Money- you determine how many pages your
  "book" will be


• Black Masking Tape- this is available at most
  craft stores. I found mine at Lee's Craft Supply here in NYC. If you want to be ultra-fancy you could use actual book-binding linen. A pricey option.


• Scissors- or a paper cutter. I ended up using my scrapbook paper cutter quite a bit on this project, because the scissors weren't cutting it.


• Address Labels- These are usually printer compatable, so you could print your "book" label if you wanted to. I just hand wrote mine.
  
• Pen- for the front, and for the inside message.
  
  

Cut your white cardstock out to a size that is just slightly larger than the outline of your stack of bills. You will want the border to be about 1/4 inch around the $.

Take your ribbon and tie it around the bills. The ribbon should be right in the center of the money.
Turn you paper/money over and tie the ribbon in the back. Tie this tight, and cut off any large amount of excess ribbon. A little ribbon is okay ( like in the picture above).

Fold your cardstock directly down the center line. Your book is taking shape.

Prepare the outer cover. Take the back off of your composition notebook. Luckily we had a notebook left over from the school year here in our house that we could use for this project. Cut directly along the seam of the binding.

Cut a rectangle of the composition notebook that is slightly larger than the white cardstock rectangle.





Then cut the cardstock rectangle directly down the middle. Here is your front and back cover.

Glue the front and back covers directly to the white cardstock. Press firmly. Wait for the glue to dry before you continue to the next step.

Take your black masking tape (or book binding tape) and bind the edge of your book. Cut the top and bottom of the tape close to the edge of the book, and then press the excess down. Add your address label with the course of your choice inscribed. I chose Economics, but I think Accounting would also be a great option. Lastly, add a message to the front inside cover.... something like, "here is some light summer reading to prepare you for Freshman year." Have fun with it :).