Nutella Valentine Mailbox | Duckabush Blog

Each year our homeschool co-op has a fun Valentine’s Day party. The halls or sides of the gym are lined with creative Valentine Day boxes – from small paper bags covered with hearts to large Dr. Who’s Tardis. Last year we made a tall Starbucks cup out of a laundry basket with a pvc pipe wrapped in green paper as the straw.

And we won a prize, oh yeah we did.

This year we decided to make something chocolately and silly in honor Tim.

A Nutella Valentine’s Day Mailbox

We started with a tall rectangle laundry basket – it was the perfect shape. We searched and searched for brown paper. Who knew that would be the difficult aspect of this venture. We went to The Dollar Store – no brown poster board or table cloths. Next, on to Michaels – no brown poster board or table cloths. Next a trip to Target. We looked again. Nothing. Seriously? Seriously? I suggested Good Will for a brown curtain or random piece of fabric. David thought maybe Hobby Lobby. Sigh. We’d already been to Michaels. Thankfully all of these stores are close by.

Laundry baskets are versatile – useful in so many ways!

Of course, this was AFTER a long day of school, mentor visits, Trader Joe’s shopping, science projects and cooking at a friend’s house.

We decided we’d try Hobby Lobby and, if we couldn’t find anything brown, we’d switch to silver wrapping paper and make a large diet Coke can. Sarah didn’t want us to give up, but David and I needed a Plan B. Ha.

Hobby Lobby proved to be a treasure trove of BROWN products. Who knew! First we found a package of dark brown napkins on clearance. “I think we can wrap the laundry basket in napkins if we have to,” I told the kids. At this point they were ready to agree with anything just to get started. “Mom, you do realize it’s almost time for dinner and we haven’t STARTED making this?”

What’s your point, children? Dinner can wait, we have a mailbox to make! There are prizes on the line here.

After napkins we stumbled on 12×12 pages of scrapbook paper in the PERFECT shade of brown. We gathered enough to cover the basket and matched them to the napkins (just in case). Before checking out, we wandered around the store a little longer. In the clearance section, in the back aisle we found a collection of poster size paper. What color was on the bottom of the stack?? Beautiful brown. And on sale. Hooray. Jumping up and down in the middle of Hobby Lobby is totally normal, right?

We (okay I) designed some Nutella Valentine Day cards and printed them out. Sarah organized them all and then David taped a Pixy Stix to each card.We’ll put them into the mailboxes tomorrow during the party. We didn’t have the time to make homemade Nutella brownies or cookies, or the funds to buy little Nutella single packs for all 69 families (or the 167 kids) at our homeschool co-op. Even I draw the line at some point.

Homemade Valentines are so much fun!

While the boys played computer games, Sarah and I wrapped the basket in the brown poster board. Using some leftover foam board, we made a lid (cutting a hole for Valentines and treats). Sarah divided a piece of white poster board into strips, drew on lines and fashioned an edge to our lid. After taping it all on, we printed out Nutella logos and even found a place where we could request personalized Nutella labels. The kids kept exclaiming over the tape, “Mom, this tape is amazing! It works so well.” Oh dear, I guess that Dollar Store tape we used at Christmas was NOT the best. LOL.

Sarah and David's personalized Nutella labels.

Sadly we are out of real Nutella.

Finally we were all done. So festive! We were all pleased with the final product! Maybe we’ll win some sort of a prize this year. I hope the kids will share it with me.