Valentine Box Ideas

If you have known me for any stretch of time you know that I have a pretty useless skill of making ridiculous cardboard crafts. This skill has really only come in handy maybe twice a year - but Valentines Day is like my Superbowl!

I love love LOVE making elaborate, fun and unique Valentine boxes for my kids, I have even made them for other people's kids! I thought I'd share some of my favorite boxes and some tips and tricks I used to make them.

In about a week or so I'll be sharing a more detailed look of how I am making my son's box this year - and if you know my son, you know it will be over the top!

The key is to think outside of the shoe box! Use various size boxes! I've used a good old amazon box, cereal box, boxes from Sam's club and even an oatmeal container. Below I'll share a list of supplies I ALWAYS need for creating Valentine Boxes!

Pro Tip - use a glue gun for everything. It dries fast, holds everything well and it has always made things easier for me. I glue the paper on the box, all the details - everything is HOT GLUED.

In my realm of making boxes, these were some of the easiest to make. It is mainly just covering the box in colored paper (and duct tape for the owl) and cutting out various shapes to out of construction paper to make the designs.

To make the popcorn I used various sizes of yellow pom poms and used posterboard behind it to hold it up (I colored it yellow so it also wouldn't be easily seen).

The owl is made with glitter and mermaid scale duct tape I found, and the details are all construction paper.

My trick for drawing or cutting out perfect circles for eyes is to use containers. I've used Tupperware, drinking cups, medicine cups, money - all to make various size circles I needed. The little white dots in the owl's eyes are from a hole punch!

Another easy box was this puppy dog box. All I used was a box, poster board and construction paper. I covered the whole box in white paper, then cut out all the details and glued it on.

I found it best to use posterboard for the face as it made it a bit sturdier and didn't fall over when I added the ears on.

Getting a little more extra now...the french fry box! Much like the dog, owl and popcorn I just used a big box and cut the top off to make it easy to put Valentines in.

This one again was just covering the box in red paper first. I used a cheap yellow pool noodle that I had left over from his Halloween costume (also a box of fries), and cut it up into little, tiny strips and just started randomly hot gluing it on the box.

After I felt like I got enough fries, I cut out some red paper to look like a box and put it on top of the fries to add a "3D" effect. Cut out a McDonald's M and that was it!

Two of my most difficult boxes - treasure box and Starbucks drink!

The treasure box was a Nike shoe box that was all sorts of altered and bent up to make a curve top. That one I decided to cover in duct tape honestly just to hold it in place better. The inside and outside details were cut out using gold glitter paper and some little jewels my girls had in their art supply cabinet.

The Starbucks cup was an oatmeal container wrapped in construction paper. Making a decent size hole in the side was probably the hardest. From there I personalized it with the logo, her name and her best qualities. After that I bought bright white insulation foam and used that to make the whipped cream top (it EXPANDS, so do this a little at a time or it's a mess) Once I got it how I liked it, I put some heart sprinkles on it before it dried, stuck a rolled up piece of construction paper in it to look like a straw and let it dry overnight.

*Best to do this in a garage on top of some newspaper or boxes - but if you can't DO NOT let it sit on your counter without putting some type of covering underneath it in case it rolls over the edge of the lid while drying.

Finally, some of my more unique ones - George Washington eating Valentines (as requested by my son), and a Lemonade stand.

George was a tough one! I printed George as large as I could and stuck him on some posterboard. From there I cut out his mouth - marionette style - and glued it below so it looked like his mouth was open.

No matter how big I printed George, the mouth opening was still very small. So, with the box I glued him on, I also cut out the top incase some Valentines couldn't fit in his mouth. The box was wrapped in construction paper, and I used a large popsicle stick attached from the box to the back of his head to hold it up better.

The Lemonade stand was also fun but a bit time consuming. I used a Sam's club Mac and Cheese box and taped it back together so it wouldn't pop back open. I cut out the sides and the front, leaving strips to make it look like a stand. Then I cut another small slit in the front and bent the cardboard over to make a ledge in the front. From there - the rest is construction paper. There were a lot of different angles in this one, so I had to do a lot of various wrapping to make sure I covered it all. I cut out a little lemon and drink to add to the stand as well!

I love when my kids give me crazy ideas to try for Valentine's boxes. It can be a lot of work but it's a lot of fun to work with them to make their vision come to life!

Here are some go-to items I use when making Valentine boxes! #ad (these are affiliate links - I do get commission on purchases).

glue gun

construction paper

dual tip markers

Other items that work just as well too are your kids' markers, flair pens (for fine lines and details, or Sharpies (outlines and details).

Happy Valentine's Day

-V