MONSTER VALENTINE BOX

Last week my daughter was so excited to find out they would be creating their own Valentine Boxes for school as a homework assignment. She was over flowing with super fun ideas so we took a few days to plan out exactly what she wanted to create. After she narrowed down the idea to a monster I had her sketch out her plan on paper so we could figure out what supplies we needed.

Supply list

* One medium sized cardboard box (we used a Goldfish crackers box)

* One small sized cardboard box (we used a kraft diner box)

* 1/2 yard of fun fur

* 4 pipe cleaners

* Googly eyes

* 3 pom poms (1 for the nose and 2 for the ears)

* White computer paper

* Utility knife

* Glue gun (and lots of glue sticks)

* Small and medium heart shaped cookie cutters

The project took us just over an hour after we had all of the supplies ready to go.

*important tip - make sure you have a sharp utility knife for cutting the fun fur!

STEP ONE: Draw the shape of the mouth on the medium sized box. (Close the box using the flap but do not tape it shut yet!) Her teacher asked for the hole in the box to be large enough to fit treat bags, so we drew a fairly large mouth.

STEP TWO: Cut out the mouth using the utility knife

STEP THREE: Determine how the material will cover the box and measure to line up the mouth. Using the cut out cardboard, trace the mouth shape onto the back side of the fun fur.

Step three - trace out the mouth onto the fun fur

STEP FOUR: Cut out the mouth shape using the utility knife.

STEP FIVE: Trace out the mouth shape onto a sheet of white computer paper and cut out the mouth with scary monster teeth! (We freehanded the teeth, but you could draw them out with a pencil first)

Step five - cut out monster teeth using computer paper

STEP SIX: Tape the teeth to the inside of the box, once the paper was taped in place I went along and added glue in any spaces that looked loose.

Step six - attach the monster teeth to the box

STEP SEVEN: Using a glue gun, begin glueing the fun fur to the box.

Step seven - glue the fun fur to the box

STEP EIGHT: I lined up one of the straight edges with the side of the box and trimmed the overhang off the other side of the box (width wise) as I progressed (glue first, let it dry then cut off the edge). The length of the fabric was long enough to do 4 sides of the box without cutting the length until the box was wrapped.

Step eight - trim the excess fun fur from the box

STEP NINE: Once I covered the first 4 sides of the box, I pieced in my side pieces using a ruler and utility knife.

STEP TEN: Repeat the steps for covering the box with the fun fur on the second box. I decided to leave the bottom side of the box uncovered to make it easier to glue into place.

Step ten - repeat the steps to the smaller box

STEP ELEVEN: Using the glue gun, glue the small box to the top of the medium box. Attach the pom pom nose and google eyes. Then use the utility knife to cut 2 small holes in the top of the small box where the antennas will go and 2 small holes in the medium box where the arms will go.

Step eleven - add the pom pom nose, googley eyes and cut small holes for the antennas

STEP TWELVE: Create the arms and antennas using pipe cleaners. In my daughter's design she wanted little heart antenna and arms. This was easily done with the help of cookie cutters (small for the antenna and medium of the arms). Wrap the pipe cleaner around the outside of the cookie cutter and wind the bottom of the heart to secure it. Remove the cookie cutter and adjust the shape if needed.

Step twelve - create the heart shaped antennas and arms

Wrap the pipe cleaners around the cookie cutter.

STEP THIRTEEN: Time for the finishing touches! We popped the pipe cleaners into the small holes we made and added a small drop of glue to keep them in place. Then added small white pom poms in front of the antennas for ears. We needed to add her name onto the box somewhere, so she used the computer to print her name in a fun font and cut it out in the shape of a heart using a large cookie cutter as a template. (Just before she took the box to school she decided to make the antennas curly by wrapping them around a pencil. I didn't get a picture but it was super cute!)