Wee Valentine Trinket Boxes

 Who wouldn't want a tiny trinket box full of lurve! This project is easy, addicting & adaptable for all ages. Take a peek!

What you need:

*empty matchboxes any size

*glue or gluestick

*paper, fabric or artwork

*markers, crayons and paint & paintbrush

*bits and baubles like buttons, stickers, charms & sweets

*scissors

Gather your supplies and have yer kidlets paint both parts of the matchbox. We paint the slipcover so that if and when you glue a paper or fabric cover the words and colors won;t show through. If your children are under 3 they can just paint away...larger matchboxes would be better. Set the boxes aside to dry:

If you are covering the matchbox with paper, you will need your gluestick, paper, a pencil & scissors. You can use other types of adhesive but a gluestick is the cleanest and most kid friendly kind. Take this moment to do a little math with your kidlets. Ask them how much paper do they think they will need to cover their box? Allow them to use the ruler to measure. A good age for ruler learning is 3 years old. I have witnessed it myself and it is pretty nifty:

Mark your paper, draw the line and cut away! Now you will have a strip to wrap around the box. Origami paper is a pretty good size for this project as you won't have to trim too much of the paper. Go to town with the gluestick and wrap it around the box:

Trim you excess paper but allow for a little bit of overlap. Once you have your box wrapped, set aside so the glue can dry. I use a clothespin to hold it down:

Now it is tme to decorate the outside. I wrapped a length of ribbon around my box using white craft glue that has been "painted" on the backside. Your kidlets may want to be-glitter their boxes are maybe adorn with stickers and other fun baubles:

While the outside of the box is drying, have your wee ones (over the age of 3) gather tiny materials to put inside. These can include candy conversation hearts, stickers, paper punched shapes, tiny toys and/or teeny drawings and secret messages:

See? Super fun! You can use these boxes for all sorts of niftiness! They can be tiny tooth catch-alls for the toothfairy, a secret place to hide notes of adoration for your children, a storage box for fortune cookie fortunes or a great gift box to present to friends and family when filled with other handmade goodies! Older kids and teens can get fancier by stitching away on scraps of fabric, ironing on to some sort of stabilizer so the threads won't unravel. I use Yes! paste on my fabric boxes so that there are no clumps or glue stains. Do you have a jar full of old mismatched costume jewelry? Use a pair of pliers to twist off clip on earring backs and glue onto the box with super strong E-6000! Younger kids can paint directly onto the boxes and or glue feathers and pom-pons to the outside or you can have them paint on regular paper and use strips of that for the outside. So many possibilities! If you decide to make one or two, send me a picture and I'll feature it right here on the Do!