Cartoon Heart Valentines Box DIY

Ok, so Valentine's Day is over for another year and I'm a little behind with posting this DIY, but rather than think of it as being late, let's call this post inspiration for next year, shall we?

This Valentine's Day I'm down to just one kid celebrating with their class. That means less work for me, but it was also quite the downer knowing that my years of helping the kids with creative projects is coming to an end. Only three more years of class Valentines left. 

This year we kept the valentines themselves quite simple. Mathilde handed out packs of Pocky with a simple label saying "Valentine, let's stick together". Get it? Pocky sticks? You can find the template for the labels here. We did put a bit more effort into the Valentines Box though.

Mathilde has been quite enamored with the cartoon style cakes that have been all over social media lately. You know the type - they're brightly colored with black outlines that give the impression of a two dimensional cartoon when view from certain angles. Luckily she wanted her Valentines box to look like a two dimensional cartoon rather than a cake - which would've been much more time consuming to create. Ooh... a cake Valentines box would be pretty cool though, right?

Valentine's Day Round Up

Valentine's Day is almost here again!

While I'm not really a fan of lovey-dovey mooshy things, I am a fan of any holiday or event that gives me a chance to get creative, and Valentine's Day is one such day!

Now that Lola has moved up to middle school, I'm down to just one kid celebrating Valentine's Day with their class. Only three more years worth of making Valentine's boxes and goodies for classmates. 

I'm looking forward to getting creative with Mathilde and can't wait to show you what we create, but in the meantime, I'm sharing a look back at all the different things we'd made for Valentine's Day in the past...

A Rainbow Valentines Box

This year the kids and I made Valentines boxes for the first time ever.

At our previous school in California the kids made either bags or boxes to collect their class Valentines as a school project rather than at home, so it wasn't something I ever had a hand in. When I learned that we'd be making them at home this year I knew it was a chance to get creative.

Having never made a Valentines box before, or knowing what was really required, I did a lot of searching on Pinterest (complete aside - if you're not following Little Hiccups on Pinterest, head over by clicking here and follow for lots of great ideas). I found a huge range of ideas, mostly made from shoe boxes. The problem was, we don't have shoe boxes. I don't tend to keep them when we buy shoes. We do, however, have tons of larger boxes from buying new furniture for our house. These boxes were all way too big to use on their own, but perfect for cutting up to create something new.

But what to make was the question...

I figured it would be easiest to make the same thing for both Lola and Mathilde, so I put my thinking cap on to come up with interests they both share. The first thing that popped into my mind was rainbows. Perfect!

Using my standard pinata creating techniques (which you can see in a really old post here) I got to work creating a basic rainbow shape out of cardboard. Once the structure was done, the girls glued on a ton of tissue paper, and voila... we had rainbow Valentines boxes!

Here's a look at how we made them.