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February 14, 2011

Valentine's Boxes

It's projects like this that I can't make up my mind about.  Do I love them, or do I hate them?  I guess it's a little of both.  Certain projects take up a lot of time even though you know it's going to be something that's temporary.  But once it's done, you love the end results and it was worth it.

Over the past few years my kids haven't really had to make many Valentine's boxes because they have usually done them as an art project at school.  But this year both of my Elementary age boys had to make one. And they were for a contest.  I think the contest part was what got me going, because I knew we could come up with awesome designs.

First comes motivation.  We happened to have a yellow shoe box sitting on the floor next to our Minion goggles that came with our Despicable Me movie, and wala!  The goggles fit the box and the idea was born.  My youngest son LOVES the movie Despicable Me, so he was all for the idea.

Evan is in second grade, and this wasn't exactly the easiest project for him, but after I drew all of the patterns on the paper he did as much punching, cutting, and gluing as he could (except for those darn overall straps which weren't very easy.)  And a MINION was born!

He was named Evan, after my son, and turned out so cute!  His mouth is where you put in the Valentine's cards.  The eyes are circle punches, the arms are rolled up newspaper covered in yellow construction paper, and the boots are toilet paper tubes and black craft foam.


Noah's box was inspired from the Family Fun website, and the fact that I had some chrome spray paint in the garage.   His dad hooked in a piece of wire for the lock to hang on and the opening is at the top.  He wanted it completely taped shut so that no one could get into it.
Noah was able to do most of this himself and it turned out great.  No, he's not that big of a Steeler's fan, but his teacher is, and most of his classmates, so he was going for the popular vote.


Despite taking up an entire afternoon, we have two very happy boys, determined to win today, and proud to show off their Valentine's boxes.  Although the minion may have just joined the family because they boys keep hugging it and said he's staying forever.

14 comments:

  1. MelissaFebruary 7, 2012 at 3:57 PM

    What are the minions glasses made out of?

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  2. Lunar daughterJune 6, 2012 at 1:49 PM

    Sorry! I didn't get notified of the comment, so I didn't reply. The minion's glasses are made of plastic and came with the movie. My kids could actually put them on.

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  3. AnonymousFebruary 11, 2013 at 4:31 PM

    I love the minion box! Fantastic! Do you have any pointers on making the mouth? I know to cut the hole in the box before wrapping the paper around it, but how did you trim the yellow paper so seamlessly? Also, is the blue jumpsuit blue painters tape? Thanks so much!

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  4. Lunar daughterFebruary 11, 2013 at 4:43 PM

    On the minion, we wrapped the lid separately from the rest of the box. That made it a little easier to work with. I'm sure the mouth wasn't perfect, but you could try to cut slits in the yellow paper from the center out, then fold them back. I probably cut it out with an Xacto knife on a cutting mat.
    The blue paper was just some denim-look scrapbook paper that I had laying around forever. If you can't find any, blue painter's tape might look about the same!
    Hope any of this helped! Good luck.

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  5. AnonymousFebruary 2, 2014 at 8:19 AM

    What are the hands made out of ? You can't see the in the picture . Really cute my grandson is going to try to make this .

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  6. Lunar daughterFebruary 4, 2014 at 2:37 PM

    The hands are also just black construction paper. I made a front and back, glued the fingers together, but left the bottom open to slide over the arm.

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  7. TaraFebruary 5, 2014 at 8:30 PM

    Thanks for your post - we copied you shamelessly and LOVE our little minion! Thanks again!!

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  8. UnknownFebruary 6, 2014 at 4:54 AM

    Any suggestions on the glasses for the minion box if you can't find the ones that came with the movie???

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  9. Lunar daughterFebruary 6, 2014 at 8:27 AM

    If you Google, "How to make minion goggles", tons of images come up for ideas. These include my suggestion of using two canning rings spray-painted silver and attached with black elastic. Then make eyes out of paper and attach them to the box underneath. Good luck!

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  10. Lunar daughterFebruary 6, 2014 at 8:30 AM

    Here's the link for an image I found with printable goggles:
    http://theorangecoffeecup.blogspot.com/2013/06/minion-goggles.html

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  11. UnknownFebruary 6, 2014 at 11:52 AM

    Thx so much!!! I'll try that!!

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  12. johnFebruary 4, 2016 at 12:06 PM

    THNKS I WILL TRYY

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  13. UnknownFebruary 8, 2016 at 9:10 PM

    For the locker,how do I hook the combination lock without wire is there any other way to hook it on?

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  14. Lunar daughterFebruary 8, 2016 at 10:54 PM

    Monae, I bet you could use anything that would support the weight of the lock. You could try a plastic zip-tie or even a pipe cleaner. If you didn't want to use a real lock and made a paper one, then you wouldn't have to support the weight. I personally like the real one on it. Hope that helps!

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