Showering a bride with cash

I am going to a bridal shower this afternoon that is a little unusual for me. The invitation stated that this is a Gift Card Shower. The couple has an established home with all the usual items a bride often places on her registry. These two people are much loved and the host of the shower wanted to do something special for them and knew the guests would feel the same way.

Having said all that, the idea of the shower didn't bother me but how would I present the gift card creatively? Presentation means a lot to me. Two other guests and I pooled our resources and discussed which gift cards we should purchase. None of the usual gift cards were exciting us and we began thinking that cash is always good since it can obviously be used for anything from a utility bill to groceries or maybe an evening out.

With the decision of cash as a gift, we were back to presentation. A check in a card? No. Cash in a card? Nope, not that either. Well....it is a shower....why not an umbrella? Not an ordinary one, a special umbrella that opens up to rain cash!

I broke up the total amount into denominations of bills from ones to twenties. I tied ribbons to the spokes of the umbrella and experimented to find a length that would have the bills exposed when the umbrella was closed. Even with short ribbons, I had to tuck the money inside, but that was ok.

On the first bill I used a glue dot (scrapbookers and card makers will know what these are) but that was very sticky and I thought peeling the cash off might be a problem. Next I tried removable tape. Opening and closing the umbrella a few times showed that wasn't sticky enough. Just like Goldilocks, the third attempt was just right. I used Scotch tape.

Here is the finished umbrella, raining cash:

And closed, with a hang tag that says "Open Me!"

On the inside of a card, I used an old Sizzix umbrella die.