Make a traditional Valentine mailbox using stickers…

This mailbox is decorated with butterfly stickers and white rick-rack trim.

The traditional Valentine’s Day mailbox is wrapped in heart tissue paper and then decorated with butterfly stickers. The colors are all traditional Valentine’s Day: red, hot pink, pale pink, white, and lavender.

Support list:

• Sturdy recycled rectangular box with lid
• Wooden Coffee Stirrers (2)
• Fancy wrapping paper, patterned scrap paper or tissue paper in Valentine’s Day colors
• Paper for lining the box
• Extra carton for the box tray
• Stickers of your choice
• trim rick rack
• White school glue and hot glue
• mod podge
• masking tape.

Step by step instructions:

1. Cut a narrow opening the size of an envelope in the top lid of the box, before covering the entire outside with a layer of duct tape. This will give it an ideal surface for decoupage.
2. In order to make a “secret compartment” inside the box to hide treats and candy, you will also need to make a tray that will fit inside the box. You can do this by cutting a rectangle slightly smaller than the dimensions of the outer box. Also add walls to the stairs on all sides using cardboard and masking tape.
3. To make sure the tray sits on top of a secret compartment, cut and glue it to a small shelf using coffee stir sticks and hot glue.
4. You may also want to finish the tray with decorative paper on the inside of the compartment.
5. Now unfold the pages of the outside of the box on all sides using the decorative Valentine’s paper and stickers. We used Valentine’s Day butterfly stickers on a doll version of this mailbox craft.
6. We’ve also trimmed the edge of the lid with a white trim.
7. The final step for a traditional Valentine’s Day mailbox should be brushing Mod Podge over all the decorations in order to keep them in place and clean during handling and play.
   

The stages of wrapping the small box with a tray are included with adhesive tape.

You can vote for this Valentine’s Day mailbox entry in the comment box below, if you like. It would be interesting to see if people/kids on the internet judge our Valentine’s Day doll mailbox contest the same way the kids do in our house.