Lo here. Perhaps you are like me and struggle with gift giving ideas for teens and young adults. Come Christmas time each year, I particularly struggle with gifts for my niece and nephews. As they have gotten older, the default has become cash or gift cards because let’s be real, that’s what they really want. So I’ve tried to come up with creative but easy ways to give them cash and/or gift cards so they still have something to open and I’m not just passing them an envelope. Here I’ll share a few things I’ve done over the years.
Gift Card Bouquet
I actually made this for a neighbor girl’s high school graduation gift but something similar could be done for Christmas. From Michaels (or any craft store), I purchased the glass vase, vase filler, and artificial flowers. I also purchased a variety of gift cards. I cut the length of some of the flowers to shorten them and then used the extra parts of the stems to hold up the gift cards. The end result was this beautiful gift card bouquet! And after the gift cards are removed, the recipient can retain the flower arrangement for a decorative display piece.
Gift Card Tree
This was a Christmas gift for my niece. Again, so easy to do and super cute! I purchased an inexpensive, tabletop tree and ornaments, which I found at Target. I then found a decorative box for the base (HomeGoods is my favorite for decorative boxes) as well as gift cards and other small gift items I could also attach to the tree (think chapstick, face masks, candy, nail polish, jewelry, etc. or other items for a more male-themed tree). At the top of the tree, I used a decorative gift card box to hold the larger denomination gift card. And again, after the gifts are removed, the recipient has an adorable tabletop tree for future use.
Advent Calendar
Sadly, I don’t have a picture of this one but one year for my nephew and his girlfriend, I used a hanging, cloth advent calendar on a dowel as their gift card and cash holder. In each of the twenty four pockets, I put either a gift card, cash in varying denominations, candy, or other small gift item. Since they were older and living on their own, I included a gas gift card, a grocery store gift card, a pet store gift card, various restaurant gift cards, a movie theatre gift card, and others. They enjoyed discovering the gift in each pocket and used the advent calendar in future years.
Cash Bucket
As they say, “Cash is King” so in more recent years I have moved away from gift cards and focused instead on creative ways to gift cash to my niece and nephews. Two years ago, I gifted them plastic buckets filled with folded cash of various denominations. I found the plastic buckets at Michaels and, along with the cash, I added curly ribbon and battery-operated string lights. Of course you could add candy and other small items as well. I used wrapping paper to wrap the bucket and then placed it in a box for wrapping as well. This way they each had a gift under the tree and something to unwrap. These were a big hit and a pleasant surprise! I am pretty sure they were panicked prior to opening them, thinking that I had tried to pick something out rather then gifting cash. 🙂
Cash Ornaments
In keeping with the cash theme, last year I filled plastic ornaments that I found at Micheals with cash and strung them together into ornament bundles using ribbon. This was fun because it took them a bit longer to get to all of their cash as they had to unstring and open each ornament. My initial plan had been to personalize and decorate the ornaments using permanent marker but I ran out of time. You could also add more ornaments filled with candy or small items to go along with the cash.
I hope you’ve found these ideas helpful or that they’ve sparked your own creative ideas! I have yet come up with an idea for this year although last year I saw an adorable wreath made from folded cash so I might give that a whirl. Whatever you do, happy gifting!
Lo+Mo 
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