Decorative Valentines Box

Pinterest has really set the bar for DIYers. So when my preschoolers came home with notes that requested a decorated box be brought to school for their Valentine's Day party, that is the first place I looked. The number of unicorn boxes complete with tissue paper and glitter was astounding. I settled on a Minnon box instead, and asked my husband to construct it. (He constructs, I decorate.) He made a face similar to someone getting flicked in the ear, and followed that up with, "Can't we make something original. I don't want to copy someone else's Minnion." He went on to mention Wall-e, and then I tried to find a Wall-e box on the internet that I could copy. There weren't any. So today I decided the boys and I would muddle through our decorative box making.

My 3-year old and I went to the basement to rummage through our box collection. We found a box that was square enough, and found some cardboard pieces we could shape into the eyes. I unrolled the paper towels, grabbed the tube, then rerolled them without a tube. I put the tube in the center of the box, shaped cardboard eyes, and used a ridiculous amount of hot glue and tape to withstand my 3-year old. Red was the color of choice for this Wall-e robot, which didn't include arms or rolling tracts.

My 3-year old was so pleased with his decorative Valentine's Day box, that it was the first thing he showed his brother when he got home from preschool. I quickly defused the jealousy by asking my 5-year old what he wanted to make for his box. He said a Stegosaurus. "That's the one with sails on it's back, right?" I asked knowing full well it was. I was in the process of telling him that I didn't think I could make that, when I stopped and grabbed the tissue box. I opened up the sides and took the tissues out. (They are now in a neat pile.) I grabbed two more pieces of cardboard and rolled them, one for the tail and one for the neck and head. I attached them to the tissue box while my 5-year old cut out the sails. I traced them onto the light weight cardboard, so he could have lines to follow. I hot glued them on to complete the Stegosaurus. He painted it all different colors, and a Stegosaurus was born.

I'm really happy I didn't use the Pinterest pictures. When I do use them, I'm usually disappointed that it didn't turn out like the pictures. I didn't have any expectations when I started this project with the boys, and that made all the difference. We just had fun cutting, gluing, and taping. They probably had the most fun painting.

After everything was dry, my 3-year old took his Wall-e and rammed it into my 5-year old's Stegosaurs. He then hugged it and said he loved it. I'm glad we made it heavy duty sans glitter and tissue paper.