Valentines Day Box

This is a new one for me. I've seen them on Pinterest. I've seen friends post their projects. But here, Gwen is in first grade now and it's the first time I've seen a note from the teacher requesting such a thing. Unfortunately, I make things complicated. Cut a hole in a shoe box and let Gwen decorate it? That would be simple. But no. It has to be complicated, and rushed last minute.

But it's done! And Gwen is super excited and actually played a big part in its success.

She loves mermaids. At least at this moment in time, her birthday party theme is Mermaids. So, it seemed like a good idea to make her Valentines Day box a mermaid theme as well.

It all started with that box. I couldn't find a good-sized box for her Valentines at home, so I went to the local craft store. They had these decorative photo storage boxes on sale for under $5.

I also grabbed a bag of foam heart stickers, which later came in handy for the Valentines that Gwen will hand out.  I gave her freedom to decorate the box as she pleased with these hearts. Then I went to work on the mermaid.

I used the cardboard from an old medical folder to make the head/torso sturdy. The head, arms, and face were done with construction paper. The shirt, wrapping paper. The tail, poster board. I used leftover wrapping paper and scrapbook paper for some scales.

The transport process from home to school and back makes things a bit tricky. So I made this where the box simply sits in her lap and she can be folded and kept safely in Gwen's school bag.

We're pretty excited about the final product :)

Now, the Valentines were a fun project, too! I wanted to include candy, or a pencil, or a sticker. I found lots of ideas on Pinterest, but decided to use the foam stickers that I bought for the box.  Gwen wrote the to's and from's on each heart. We took her picture holding an invisible heart and then I added it in Photoshop.

These were printed on 110lb cardstock at Office Max. I used an exacto knife to cut around her fingers and Gwen stuck the hearts inside.

I had a lot of fun working with Gwen on these projects.
Happy Valentines Day to all! ♥