Making a monster box can be as simple as painting a shoebox green, adding googly eyes on the top, and turning the slit for the cards into the monster’s mouth.
Lots of kids love trains, and a shoebox — or two, or three — can be easily turned into train cars.
Choose your game console wisely, depending on what the kids in your life like to play. Then, with a little paint, a shoebox can be turned into a game console from just about any maker.
The square and rectangular shapes of shoeboxes and cereal boxes lend themselves to robot-making, too. Paint a robot onto a box with a big smile that doubles as the slit for the cards.
Use some cardboard or construction paper for the triangular ears, then add construction paper rolled into a cone for the snout.
Turn a shoebox into a Hogwarts-inspired castle or a trunk with faux leather and gilded nail studs.
With brown paint and some gold glitter, plus a clasp made out of an old belt buckle, you could have a mighty fine treasure chest Valentine’s Day box.
Valentine’s Day box ideas for girls tend to favor brighter colors (and more of them), like this creative unicorn box made with papier mâché horn.
Paint a brilliant rainbow across the sides of a box and turn the lid into a cluster of fluffy white clouds.
Paint a box red (especially a round hat box, if you have one), add black polka dots, and stick on some black pipe cleaners for the antennae.
Choose a superhero then paint its characteristic costume features onto a box. If the character wears a cape, add one made out of a real fabric clipping.
Of all the characters in the Toy Story movies, the claw-machine aliens make great Valentine’s Day box ideas since they’re fairly square. This idea is easy to make with paint.
