Valentine’s Day DIY Kleenex Boxes

Valentine’s Day is coming up… which means school parties… which means Valentine’s card boxes… which means it’s time to do some crafting in the evenings. Per usual when this sort of challenge arises, I turn to Pinterest and that nifty little search feature and almost without fail, I find myself with a plan of action in a matter of minutes.

Of course this year, I had a head start. I’d been hunting and savings Valentine’s Day ideas since early November and saving them to my Valentine’s Day board on Pinterest. That way, when it came time to make boxes and cards, I could narrow the options down and let the kids pick.

Oddly, they both picked the exact same Valentine’s Day box, an idea I’d pinned from Giggle’s Galore’s post about making a “Tattle Monster.”

Both kids instantly fell in love with the idea, which was fine by me! Better this than some insane Martha Stewart 27 step “this will only take you a minute” lace infused insanity.

Besides, tissues boxes are free. And since Mr W keeps tissues in nearly every room of the house, there are ALWAYS empty tissue boxes to be had.

So Monday night I stopped at JoAnn Etc. to pick up two cans of spray paint. (Unfortunately, we only had black spray paint, or this project wouldn’t have cost anything…as it was I spent $8 on two cans.) After homework, Mr W and the kids headed out to the garage with tissue boxes and spray paint in hand. He showed them how to spray the boxes and they went to town.

By the time we were done with dinner, the boxes were dry.

I used three different circle punches to punch our various colors of scrapbook paper for them and they went to town with glue sticks to put spots on the monsters.

In the meantime, Mr W used a utility knife to cut the “pockets” out of an egg carton while I used an exacto knife to cut some white poster board into jagged teeth for the openings. We glued it all into place and had two little monsters ready to consume Valentine’s Day greetings and candy.

Thing Two was wishing we’d had room for a tail and a horn so he could call his a Purple People Eater, so I explained that he could simply sing “Three eyed, no horned, flying Purple People Eater” instead.

Thing One’s box only had two eye, so she decided she had a Two eyed, no horned, flying Pink People Pleaser” instead.

Of course the biggest challenge was keeping them from playing with them before they had a chance to make it to school. They are, after all, made of tissue boxes…and therefore not the sturdiest structures known to man. It didn’t stop Thing Two from hamming it up when I was taking pictures that morning.

Or Thing One from getting in on the act a well…

Something tells me these are going to live on a bit in their rooms after the parties. At least until they’ve fed them enough toys that they finally fall to pieces.

In the meantime, you can’t beat a last minute Valentine’s Day craft that’s THIS cute.