September 2005 Archives

This past June, my mom wanted to buy me some flowers for my graduation but the catch was that I had to choose my own bouquet. I looked around both on and offline, but I couldn't really find anything that I wanted to carry around on my graduation day. I thought briefly about taking the easy way out and ordering an orchid lei from Hawaii so that my hands would be free, but those cost about $75 to ship to Canada overnight by FedEx. I couldn't justify spending that much on something that would be thrown away in less than a week.

I never really liked flowers, especially cut flowers. They seem so pointless; so expensive, yet so temporal. So in my tradition of making fashion statements, I made a bouquet out of Canadian $5, $10 and $50 bills. This bouquet may cost many times more than a fresh bouquet (depending on the denominations of the bills you use) but it will last forever. If you ever grow tired of it, you can even disassemble it and spend it on something more practical.

Adapted from Dollar Bill Rose by Susan from Craft at Home, here are my refined step-by-step instructions on how to make a long stemmed rose out of money.

1. Materials

1. 1 silk flower with removable leaves and plastic calyx (circle of leaves beneath petals)
2. 1 metre of floral tape
3. 2 floral stem wires about 50 cm long (one should be 18 or 20 gauge, the other should be 22 or 24 gauge)
4. 1 pair of longnose pliers
5. 1 pair of linesman pliers (or anything rigid with a small flat surface)
6. 5 crisp bills (the newer the better)
Not shown:
7. anything adhesive (glue, tape)
8. any flat, rigid surface (pile of magazines on a table, cutting board)