Testing the harness with fanfolded paper attached.

Spray painting the shoulder harness black. Most of this was going to be visible.

Next, I needed two or three loose bills sitting on top of the stack, curling up at each end. The only way I could think to do it was with chicken wire and paper mache, but I wasn't sure it would work, or that it was the lightest option. Another strike against it was that I could only paper mache one side of one bill per evening, devouring most of the time remaining before the contests began.

I cut chicken wire to the size of the top (60" x 30") and tried to give it a mostly-flat, slightly curved surface. The actual paper macheing only took about 20 minutes per side. I applied a thin layer of paper, because I didn't want the sheets to be rigid.

Four nights later, I had my giant cash finished and dry. They weren't exactly the right shape, but I pinned the centers down and the rest of the bills cooperated, curling up just a bit at each end.

Side view of the top sheets on top of the undecorated side.

Macromedia Fireworks has a command to print a large image into regular 8 1/2 x 11" sheets of paper, I just had to tape them together.

I printed out pieces to three giant $5 bills and used spray glue to stick them down onto the paper mache. It looked great, and the green of the paper appeared to match the tinted green from the fan folded paper. It was ridiculous, to care about this kind of detail when the audience was going to be 15 feet away, operating with a blood alcohol level in the low teens.

The newly-mounted eye-posts got slid into their pre-cut slits, and the blue-stripe money wrap came around after that, pinned and glued into place.

Damn, it looked great! By some miracle, the folded paper gave the effect of an edge of stack. It worked!

Please continue reading page 9 of the Money you could be saving with Geico costume.