DIY Valentines Day Mail Boxes

Valentines Day is right around the corner and it’s time to make some fun and affordable crafts you can use as gifts or use each year for the holiday! Remember how as kids in elementary school every year you’d make a valentine’s box for your desk for all of those cards you’d received at the class party? Today’s DIY is a spin on that idea! I made Valentine themed mailboxes to fill with goodies for my friend’s daughters and I made a larger version as a decoration for my office. For this project you will need to pick a few things up from the store, but if you’re like me, you’ll also have a chance to clean out your craft hoard! These mail boxes are not only adorable – but make great gifts!

The supplies I used:

• 1 large paper mache mailbox (found at Hobby Lobby)
• 2 small, tin mailboxes (found in the dollar spot at Target)
• 4 wooden spools
• 2 heart shaped wood cut outs
• Paint
• Red Glitter
• White with silver glitter rick rack (the zigzag ribbon)
• Red ribbon
• Glue
• Valentine heart felt stickers
• Hot glue
• 2 Rhinestone initials

We’ll start with the large mailbox first. It’s made of craft paper so I painted it a shade of pink inside and out. While I was painting I thought to myself, man this is going to need some sparkle. So of course I busted out my trusty red glitter and covered the flag. As with all glitter projects, I recommend sealing your glitter with a clear sealer. This will help keep the glitter on your project and off of everything else in your home.

Once the paint and glue were all dry, I went around the front edge and back edge of my mailbox gluing on the rick rack. With this part you’ll want to be careful not to burn yourself and to make sure you put your glue and ribbon on correctly the first time. Paper Mache is a bit unforgiving if you try to remove something you’ve already glued on. Once I had my ribbon on I worked out where I wanted to place my heart stickers. These felt stickers have peel off back, but I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t fall off so I hot glued them on. Those babies aren’t going anywhere. That quick and easily I have a new decoration! I plan on using it in my office to hold Valentine’s candy!

Now onto the super cute mini mailboxes! I picked up a couple of tin mailboxes in the dollar spot at Target. Now I’ll be honest and tell you I didn’t exactly think through the process of putting these together, so I did things the hard way. Luckily, I didn’t make things too difficult on myself.

First I painted the hearts that I used as the base and the spools I used to add height. You could even use cheap candlesticks or perhaps a dowel rod. While my bases were drying, I went to town decorating the mailboxes. It was pretty simple because I just used stickers I had bought. The ones I made are being gifted to a 3 and 4 year old so I figured they’d be destroyed in a matter of months, best to keep it cheap and basic.  Once again, I recommend hot gluing the stickers on so they’ll stay put. I bought each girls’ first initial in rhinestones and carefully place them on the front panel of the mailbox. They’re not exactly centered, but they are at least mostly straight. That’s a win in my books!

At this point I glued 2 spools together and then glued those to a heart. This will be the base for your mailbox. Now here is the point where I should have done things in a different order. Once I had the bases glued together, I glued them to the mailboxes then finished decorating. Instead, I should have decorated and then attached the bases to the mailbox. I measured out how much ribbon I would need to go around the spools and hot glued them on. The rick rack around the bottom of the heart I glued as I went and then cut when I was finished. Fully assembled they’re ready to be filled with goodies for the girls!

These make such cute gifts for kids or even coworkers. You can pull them out every year for decoration or let your kids them in their rooms to play with. You could even use them to leave little notes every so often. They really are quick and easy gifts that you could whip up in no time!