I've had a lot more luck staining paper than painting it, so I tried that again this year. Home depot will tint wood stain with color, so I found a suitable green and brought it to the paint counter. The gal there was really helpful. If you ever need help counterfeiting money, see Theresa at the Home Depot on Howe Avenue.

This stain was water-based, so I thinned a cup in a quart of water before sponging it onto a test sheet. It looked pretty good. It was wrinkled, and the color was a little mottled, but I thought those inconsistencies would make the giant money even more realistic.

I also tried a neat rechargeable compressed-air spray can, but the colors were too spotty.

For a few nights, I stained and hung wet paper in my garage, then folded the dry sheets in front of the television. This was pretty boring, but much cheaper than one of those professional origami dudes.

Apparently there are temporary paper window blinds for sale which would have made this process a lot easier, but I didn't find any.

Next, I used long quilting pins to attach the folded paper to the outside of my box. If the folds were too big, they started to look like window blinds, if they were too thin, it would take a lot more work to cover the whole box. My viewport required some special attention, and the paper folded right around where it needed too. It looked pretty good!

I stole some of my kids' blue construction paper to make the paper bands.

To mount the eyes, I bolted a steel strap to a stumpy tab of plastic I left at the bottom. This had to be a strong, flexible connection. There wasn't going to be too much force on this joint, but it had my full attention, because if this little plastic tab broke off, it would be a disaster.

I used hot glue for flexibility, and small bolts with large washers to spread out any flexing force.

It looked pretty good, but I gave it a test-shake and it snapped in two!

Too bad, but I could fix it, and it was 100 times better that it broke here rather than at a party somewhere. For the redesign, I sandwiched a steel strap all the way up the back of the eye and hid it with a second white foam board backing. This is what I should have done in the first place.

Please continue reading page 8.