Building, taping, cutting, gluing, bleeding....Otherwise known as: Assembling Valentine's Boxes

As the kidlins grow older, their need for mom to make them a Valentine’s Day box for school starts to die out. This is the stuff I live for! I LOVE decorating. Halloween pumpkins, Valentine’s boxes, anything.. Corinthian is in the 6^th grade. I was sad when I realized the school didn’t want parents to decorate but the kids to do their own.

So let me show you some of the boxes I’ve made over just the last 2 years, I know my pics of the rest of the boxes are on an external hard drive, somewhere, but it might as well be in Oz for how accessible they are.

This was Corinthian's last year. Nothing fancy or elaborate. It wasn't my favorite, but she pretty much decided on everything for it. 

Now here is Quinn's box from last year.

This one was made not long after we lost the great Chris Kyle last year. We are a proud supporter of our troops, so we wrote R.I.P. Chris Kyle on one side, but it didn't show up in the pictures. 

The year before that, Quinn wanted a tackle box. No challenge is too much for me to try for, so he got a tackle box Valentine’s box. 

This one is terribly shady for some reason, but there are rubber worms and bobbers hanging with fishing line.

So you can see how I really enjoy doing anything creative, right? Corinthian brought home her box to work on. I spent the day in bed with the flu so she worked away on her box. She was so proud showing me her final product. After I calmed down when I realized she dug into some of my scrapbook supplies, I assessed the situation:

The creative person in me was in absolute agony as I realized she didn’t even cover the whole box with paper! The pride in me was a little embarrassed that others would think this is how I did it. Then God came through and I saw her smile. I realized how she carefully picked the paper she used to make hearts from. How she chose the color of paint that she painstakingly brushed into her selected shape. I saw that for the first time since we had been making school projects, this one was ALL her. Do I think I could have done a better job? Absolutely, but it would never be more perfect than it is. I could only take away from her creation. 

Quinn said he didn't think he needed a box this year, so I did no planning. He hits me at the last minute that he does, in fact need a Valentine's box. Not only that, but he wants a dragon. He asked if I could make it breathe fire. 

This is what he got. Olaf. I'm sure he will be a little upset tomorrow morning when he gathers his things for school and realizes he has no fire-breathing dragon. But I did what I could. I used this fantastic printable from Pinterest. Since my printer has decided it only wants to print in very light grey tones, I got to get the markers and colored pencils out tonight. Secretly, I love to color when the kids aren't around to steal my crayons! 

Show me your creations! Do you or your kids come up with the idea and how do you work on it together? These are some things I need to know for the future!