School Valentine Boxes

It's that time of year again ... the kids bring home a paper that says they need to decorate a box for Valentines and thus the challenge is on. Every year, the kids have come home with stories of amazing boxes that other kids had. Every year has ended with Olivia in tears because she never wins a prize. This being her last year in Elementary (gulp ... it's painful to type that out!), it was time to step up and think of something creative that would give her a shot at winning a prize.

Harrison, who can never tell us what he does want, only what he certainly does NOT want, was no help at all! I researched on-line for ideas ... found some darling ideas for boys that are not frilly or mushy.
I suggested a pirate ship.
Absolutely not.
Firetruck?
He rolls his eyes.
Dinosaur?
His eyes light up.
He goes to bed once he has finished writing all of his Valentine's.
I attempt to find a dinosaur picture on-line that we can print out. Ed is cranky and beyond irritable when the picture he prints doesn't fulfill the vision that I have in my head. I want something cool. I tell him it looks lame. He gets upset and tells me I'm investing way too much in a box for a 3rd grader. Thus proceeds the battle of wills. It's 10:30 and I give up looking on-line when nothing we've found will work. I dig through Harrison's closet in the dark and come upon a book of his that gives me a brilliant idea.
15 minutes and some precision with a razor blade, and we have not a dinosaur but a dragon:
3-D, popping off the box! Nothing girly or mushy about it! Harrison liked it, once he got over the fact that his mother took a blade to his book. I promised him I was careful so we can glue it back into the book. When Ed picked the kids up from school the next day, he saw the parade of children with their over-the-top Valentine boxes, obviously created by ambitious parents who didn't wait until 9:30 the night before to start on theirs! Harry's friend had a 4 foot tall mail-box with working door and Valentine decor. Ed told Tyson that his mailbox looked good. Tyson said, "Yeah - my mom made it. But Harrison had the coolest box!" Ed suddenly understood why pasting 4 inch pictures dinosaurs to the box was a lame idea!

Challenge Number 2: Creating something for Olivia. I proposed a Twilight themed box - we could make a 4 poster bed with tulle netting and a poster of Bella and Edward on the wall. Olivia wanted something different. She wanted large hearts attached to a box. I didn't want to disappoint her with my inability to draw large hearts to attach to a box! I told her to let me show her some other ideas. One visit to Hobby Lobby and a few bucks later, I had the supplies needed to create a very cute and very hairy Love Monster! She loved it!

The best part ... the smile on her face when she burst through the door after school, anxious to tell me that she won the prize for "furriest" Valentine box!