Hockey Valentine Box Tutorial

If you know my son, you know he has big passions, big ideas and a big imagination! It is absolutely one of my favorite things about him.

Here were my son's guidelines for his hockey valentine box:

1. The UBS Arena with the Islanders playing the Rangers (He got to go to a game there over Christmas break and was OBSESSED)

2. Board Sponsors need to be McDonalds, George Washington and his Papa's company (IRIS Fire Investigations)

3. The Islanders need to be beating the Rangers 5 -0 and his favorite player, Matt Barzal, needs to score a goal with 3 seconds left in the game.

   
   

After my mind started racing and the panic subsided - I said CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!

And this is how I did it!

For this I am using a cereal box. I always tape up the box so it doesn’t pop open later. Next, I cut the hole in the side. It's not center or perfect - but it adds character, right?

Since my son wants the Islanders, I am going to cover all the sides of the box with those colors of construction paper. When I get to the hole in the box, I cut the paper larger than the hole, this allows me to fold the paper inwards, so it has a nice clean edge. Once this is done, I start the design.

The top of the box I used white to make the "ice". I designed the rink in pencil (using medicine cups and tupperware for circles) and then colored it in once I like the look of it.

Next, I used some pipe cleaner and some mesh to make hockey nets. And a black pony bead as a puck.

Once the ice was done, I used 8 popsicle sticks, two on each corner placed in a 90-degree angle. I cut tiny slits in the corner to slide the sticks in and used a dot of glue to hold them in place. These sticks are going to hold up my sheet protectors that I am going to use to make the glass around the rink.

I used one sheet protector and cut it into four strips and glued them to the popsicle sticks. After that I took strips of white paper to make "the boards" - and drew all the "sponsors" he wanted.

Next comes the scoreboard. I used black paper and some chalk markers to make the score/time. Then I found a picture of Matt Barzal scoring on the Rangers (thank you Jesus that actually happened!) printed it out, covered in in packing tape to give it the "screen shine" and stuck it in the middle!

Then I just glued this part to the back side and that was it!

All in all, this took me maybe 2-3 hours or so to make over the course of picking at it for a couple days. My son is thrilled to death that I made his idea come to life! So here is the full reveal....

How'd I do?!