Panda Valentines

I adore Valentines Day!  

And oh how I loved it in elementary school!

 Making pretty boxes. Selecting She-Ra valentines. Carefully picking out which valentine pun on the cards best suited the boy I had a crush on.  Making sure I took extra time to write his name on it and sign mine with an extra heart or two.  Yup… loved it all!  

When Scooter, my oldest,  first started school I had both her box and Valentines thought out a month in advance.  And then came child two… and then three.  After multiple kids needing boxes and Valentines year after year the magic was a bit um… lost.   Last year Scooter used the same box she had used for the two years previous.  Yep, three years in a row with the same box.  Every year we would dust it off and perform a little light surgery and reattachment to a few hearts.    However this summer while cleaning out the basement my husband came across our immortal Valentine box and said "No more".  

It was thrashed.  

Poor… sad …valentine box .  

It was time we parted ways.  

This morning my girls reminded me that they would need boxes on Valentines (ahem… in two days).  So I pulled out a couple boxes and stared at them.  I kept hoping some fabulous idea would come.  5, 10, 15 minutes later…I then looked at the boxes and said "Nope …I've got nothing."  (I have no issues talking to inanimate objects).     I then thought "This box thing is not doing it for me."  They are hard to decorate (only so many things come in rectangle).  And they can be a pain for little hands and arms to cart around.  

What if we used a bag?  

Now a little something about me… when I change the rules of the game, even just an itsy bit, the creative problem solving side of me comes out.  Light bulbs tend to come on.  Then I get all giddy.  

And that is exactly what happened.  

So Momo and I ran to the store and got supplies, and when the girls got home this is what we made…

 We used the reusable grocery bags.  These are from Target (I wanted red for obvious holiday color coordinating).  We glued furry fabric to the front and back of the bags.  Then I made a template of the panda pieces on card stock.  We cut and glued away.

I forgot to take a photo of the back, but we put a little heart for a tail. 

You really could do this for any furry animal.  Monkeys, bears, kitties, dogs, foxes, monsters.  

(I can think of valentine play on words to go along with everyone of those…. 'Cause I'm Bananas over you).  

Now everyone knows that when you take what should be an oval shape and cut it as a heart it immediately becomes valentineized. 

Do you remember in elementary school cutting hearts out of construction paper and putting them together to make an animal?  I clearly recall a valentine elephant I made.  Small heart for the head, large heart for the body and I used Red Hots for his eyes.  

Same general idea.  

Now here is the ironic part.  I was all excited to be using something different… not a box.  But the weight of everything made it so the bag wouldn't stand upright.  So I had to put a box in it to get it to stand up.  (I used cereal boxes, the big type from Costco.  I keep them around for projects).  Here is another ironic part… you wouldn't have to use a bag to make these.  A box would do just fine. I sure do like the panda bags though.

And the nice thing is they could use them for other things too.  Even if it's just to pack some toys for long car rides.  

Well I'm off.  It's late and apparently it's crazy hair day at school tomorrow.  Nothin' like packing in as much as they can in one week.

I hope you have a beary happy valentines, 'cause your the cat's meow, you're so doggone cute, and I like you so much it's scary!

xoxo

anj.


Update… 
Here is a photo of my girlies on Valentine morning with their bags.   They were pretty excited!  Do you see the photo bomb in the window?  LOL.  Momo mopes every morning when they head to school.  He is crushed again.