While the game was going Sunday afternoon, Miss Emma and I set out to do a little Valentine’s crafting. We made cardboard mailboxes to hold all the Valentine’s mail we’ll be expecting in the next several weeks. 🙂 Here’s how we turned cereal boxes into a work of Valentine art!
Supplies
a cardboard box…as you can see, we used cereal boxes
paper
art supplies
2 pieces of 7″ elastic string
2 buttons
hot glue gun
Directions
1. Prep your boxes by taping down any open sides.
2. Turn your box sideways, and cut along the top and sides (not the bottom) to create a flap.
3. Cut a slit in the top of the box. For my cereal box, I marked 3″ in from each side and 3/4″ and 1 1/4″ from the top. Connect all your marks together using a ruler and cut your slit.
4. Cut paper pieces to fit all sides (except the back) of your box.
5. Give your kids the paper to decorate using whatever mediums they want. We used markers, stamps, ribbon, and cut out cloth hearts. Start warming up the hot glue gun.
6. After they have all their paper decorated, it’s time for the hot glue! Hot glue all the paper to the box. I tried glue sticks and Elmer’s glue but it didn’t work so well. The hot glue worked the best. Hot glue 2 buttons to the top.
7. Hot glue the 2 strings inside the flap at the top. These are to keep the flap closed after the mailbox has been checked for letters. I really just used my best guess as to where they should go in relation to the buttons.
8. Hang on your door (or to the side). I used thumb tacks to hang them up. Wait anxiously for mail to start arriving!
A word of advice…I would recommend doing all the prep work before calling the kids to the table. It took me longer than I expected, and Emma G was “so bored.” When I finally had the paper cut, she said, “Now this is what I’m talking about!”
Another mailbox idea…the Duck Tape Valentine Box from Michael’s.
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