DIY Valentine's Mailboxes

About a month ago, I began to have Valentine's Day on the brain.  I went crazy pinning stuff on my pinterest board that I wanted to make.  One thing in particular was these Valentine's mailboxes.

Um, who doesn't love opening up the mailbox and finding a crisp envelope - preferably a colored envelope, with a real stamp on it,  and handwritten addressed to you?  OK, I sound desperate, but sorry, it's sad getting so much junk mail and catalogs and nothing fun.

If the mail isn't coming to us, we'll send it to ourselves for now.  So, the day after I pinned them, I went to Target dollar bin and bought 7 mailboxes.  I didn't have much choice in the colors, all they had was turquoise and white ones.

The next day, we went to Goodwill and for the first time, instead of dropping stuff off, we went in.  We got seven candle sticks for $0.99 each!

I let Hazel choose the paint colors, and just like I would have, she chose rainbow colors.

She painted all the candle sticks by herself, it took about two weeks to finish - we've been busy.  We did all surfaces, wood, metal, and glass with the acrylic paints we had- we did not sand or prime any of them.

I hot glued all the mailboxes onto the stands.

I cut out letters for their initials out of the scrapbooking paper that I've had laying around for 8 years, thinking it'll actually make it into an album - chuckle!  In my perfect world, I would have done all solids- doesn't this one look so nice?

But they are for the kids, so I let them choose which paper they wanted me to use.

Except dad, I chose his ;)

There have been many communal gatherings around these lately, wondering when we can use them. I think I have created a monster here.

When will I open mine and find something inside?

Send my kids some mail already!

This project has motivated me to finish something I've wanted to do for the kids for the past three years.  Stay tuned tomorrow to see the new Letter Center I made for the kids.