A Fun Way To Give Cash at Christmas

Each year at Christmas, Mr. T. and I give cash gifts to our three adult children, along with our daughter-in-law.  They love getting cash and it certainly simplifies things for us, but cash is not the most exciting gift to give.  I wanted to let you in on what we are doing this year.  Don't worry.  I'm not spoiling their surprise.  They don't read my blog...

This year, thanks to Pinterest, I found a way to make the cash gifts feel more festive.  All five of them will find one of these origami star "ornaments" hanging on the tree on Christmas morning. They're gonna' love them!, and I'm pretty impressed, myself!

Here is how I went about it.  I found the directions for the origami star here.  You will need five bills in whatever denominations that you desire, however much your cash gift is.  The actual folding of the bills was surprisingly easy!  This star is my first try and as I said, I impressed myself! I used five $20.00 bills for my test star, but I used fifties, twenties and a ten for my final stars.  Since the bills have different shades on them, the look was a bit more colorful, but in a very subdued way.

Five Star Fronts

Five Colorful Star Backs

I made the tag in PicMonkey, my favorite online photo editing program.  They have tons of seasonal backgrounds and add-ons that give you lots of design options.  The star is attached to the tag with a small piece of double sided tape.  I punched a hole in the tag, added a ribbon for hanging and there you have it. Finito!

 Making these stars was easy! You can make your cash star gift inexpensive by using five one dollar bills, or,.. the sky is the limit!  I think that they could make an impressive cash gift year round, not just at Christmas time. You would just change up the tag to make it more seasonal.

Next... I will be making some of these star ornaments from my late mother's sheet music for the piano.  What a fine way to remember her and her wonderful musical talent at Christmas.

Give these stars a try! You will be amazed at how simple they are to make.

New Fabrics

I've been having tons of fun with some NEW FABRICS!  These five Thread were just listed moments ago at my Etsy Shop, Curry Bungalow  .  I am trying to break out of my floral box and use modern prints.  These above in the larger picture are positively delicious!  They are from the "Florence" line by Denyse Schmidt. This one just might be my new most favorite!, well... until I make the next one.

Short on Snow But Long on Pretty!

This is the view from my window today. So very pretty, isn't it? We've had some snow here in the 'Burg, not much, but enough to give the view toward the Callahan Range to the West a very  "Currier and Ives" look this morning!  Just had to share.  

My 15 Seconds of Fame

My little blog is one of the FEATURED BLOGS for the month of December at The Quilt Pattern Magazine !  How cool is that???  This is what their review looks like in the magazine.

I was notified that my review had been posted early this morning. I pretty much choked on my coffee when I read those words, "twenty-something".  Whoa!!!  That is certainly not a bad thing to be mistaken for when one is actually,... ahem.... a "sixty-something"!  My head feels so big that I just might knock my ears off the next time that I walk through a doorway!

Thanks Barbara, and thanks to THE QUILT PATTERN MAGAZINE for the lovely review!