Dad’s and Grad’s are what it’s all about this month! Everywhere we turn, there’s another celebration. This week, we’re attending the graduation for my cousin McKenna, and we couldn’t be more proud. What better way to say “You Rock” than to give her a “Money Lei” to rock as she walks down the Grad stage? The money lei idea can also be used for other occasions and makes a money-gift a little more special.
Now you may be wondering what is a “Money Lei”? …I thought the same thing, but when we attended my little bro’s graduation a few weeks ago, his lovely girlfriend Margaret pointed out a LOT of grad’s wearing Money-Lei’s. I couldn’t believe it. They’re super popular on the grad circuit, as well as Pinterest and even on Etsy! They’re a fun spin on the Hawaiian floral lei’s that grads often wear on their walk. We chose to include some blue ribbon to match McKenna’s school colors, and you could do the same for your grad to dress your lei up.
So, with Margaret’s inspiration, and seeing these awesome adornments all over the web, I hit up Pinterest and YouTube for some guidance to get going. Now, I’ll be honest…these lei’s are easy to make, but they will take some time to finish. You may want to give yourself plenty of time to do a little every day, or make it a group project like we did…where one helper can pick up the materials, one helper folds the money, and one helper fastens the lei together. It’s all simple to do, and you can have some fun with it while watching a good movie LOL. All you’ll need is some curling ribbon, as many dollar bills as you need for your desired gift amount, some drinking straws, and some double sided tape! The suggested amount on the tutorials, is $100. To streamline things and keep a shorter lei, we opted for $50 in one’s, and $50 in $5’s. This saved us half of the work, and made for the perfect length.
There’s a great “Instructable” to follow HERE, and a really awesome YouTube tutorial HERE.
To add some 3P Polish, we packaged her lei up in a Money themed basket to add our two cents. All blue, with a lot of “bucks”! We included a blue candle, money-wrapped candy in cute a blue jar, some blue chewing gum, a graduate themed mason jar with chocolate gold coins, and even a blue frame with a message just for McKenna: “Some Money, Honey for your Graduation.” You can download your own printable HERE! A bit of play-money, a 2014 grad tassel, a glitter clothes pin, and matching card completed our look.
Congratulations, McKenna, we’re so proud of you!
To help 3P, be sure to share this idea with other families of graduates via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. Let us know how your grad gift pays off!
