My grandson Aaron is turning ten this month, and his birthday party is scheduled for this Sunday.  Last year, I gave up trying to find him a gift for his birthday, and instead I am now relying on a present of cash.  I’m saving his “want” list for Christmas, and who doesn’t like money?  But I didn’t want to just give him money with a card in an envelope — how boring!  This was my last year’s idea: I taped 30 dollar bills together end-to-end using painters tape on the back.

I then rolled up the cash, inserted it into a Kleenex box, and taped a giant pink construction-paper finger to the last bill.  A sharpie helped me make the finger wrinkles, fingernail, and the best part — the “Pull my finger” direction.  Aaron loved the gift (though he missed the finger-pulling allusion) and loved to see the money come out and out and out and out.

This year, I found a little box (maybe 4″ x 4″ x 4″) at Michael’s for under $3.  I figured with a little ingenuity, I could make a “treasure box” to hold the cash for this year’s gift.  Since Aaron’s room is decorated in camo, I first applied brown craft paint to the entire box.

After it was dry, I used sandpaper to scuff it up a little.  (BTW, my favorite part of this is the lock.  It’s so cool!)

Next I kind of, sort of, followed directions for aging wood with Vaseline.  The site http://lovegrowswild.com was my inspiration. I used a little Vaseline throughout the outside of the box, just spreading it on with my finger.  You can see in the photo above where the shiny Vaseline-d spots are.

To make the box look camouflaged, I wanted several shades of green on the top.  The idea is that the green won’t stick where the Vaseline is.  Remember the crayon-resist technique from elementary school?  I dabbed a bright green craft paint next to a dark green one, getting a little of each on my brush.  I then painted the whole box.  CRAP ALERT:  Unbeknownst to me, the extra glaze that was in the dark brown paint was a key to avoiding crapsmanship.

After painting the outside of the box, I needed to wipe off the green paints with a wet rag.  The green paints stayed tacky until I was able to use the rag.  Looking a the photo above, you can see mostly brown, a few scuff marks, a little green, and my favorite lock.

To decorate the box, I camo-ed an “A” that I found in my craft box to the outside lid.  I covered in all over with ModPodge — my favorite tool to seal the box.

Finally, I found one lonely army man toy in the grandkids’ toy box, so I glued him to the inside using E6000.  I used about three inches of a plastic straw, cut it lengthwise, and inserted rolled-up bills into the cylinder.  Now GI Joe holds the money in the box.

He’ll be perfect for holding the cache of cash!