DIY Cereal Box Mailbox

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 01

Remember how we did the Love Language quiz to uncover Sophie’s love language? Another of her love language is words of affirmation. Beyond praises, words of affirmation could also mean affirmation, appreciation and encouragement.  I know that nothing lights Sophie up more than hearing specific praise for something that she overcome especially when she gave her 101%.

One thing that I’ve read about praising kids is that it has to be genuinely meaningful for it to have a positive impact on your child. Otherwise, saying good job will just backfire as being hollow and insincere.  You can read more about it here.

Since Sophie is starting to learn to read and write, I thought it would be a good idea for us to write love letters and notes to each other as a way for us to show our love. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to receive hand written letters from daddy and mummy and I’m also looking forward to receiving her notes and drawings.

So to get us started, we did a simple craft work with our DIY mailbox from a cereal box, an idea inspired by A Happy Mum.

Ready to make one too? Here’s what you need.

DIY Cereal Box Mailbox

Materials

  • Cereal box
  • Coloured paper
  • Stickers and embellishments
  • Scissors
  • Pen knife
  • Scotch tape
  • Washi tape

Steps

1. Get a cereal box and lay it out flat. Using a pencil, mark out a slot for mails on one side and use a pen knife to cut it out

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 02

 

2. Wrap the cereal box with colored paper. Here you can see that I cheated and only wrapped the front of the box since the other side will be stuck to the wall.

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 03

 

3. Next it when you can get the kids involved and decorate the box with stickers and embellishments. I used letter stickers, stickers and ribbon.

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 04

 

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 05

Sophie decided to add her drawings on it too though it looks a little too faint to be seen.

4. Once it’s ready tape your cereal box together inside out with scotch tape.

5. To enable us to get the letters out easily, I sealed the bottom of the box with washi tape.

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 06

 

6. Finally, mount  it up at a prominent place and start writing those love letters.

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 10

 

I even added an envelope as an indicator whenever there is mail waiting for us 🙂

 

Sophie writing her love note to mummy! *Yippee*

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 07

 

I folded my note to her in a shape of a heart to surprise her. Do you remember doing this as a student with your bus tickets too?

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 08

 

A love note to mummy and daddy ready to be mailed!

DIY Cereal Box mailbox 09

I can’t wait to receive more love letters from Sophie!

 

Linking up with

new button

Like/Share this:

Tagged: ,

Comments: 13

  1. Mary Heng October 9, 2014 at 12:03 pm Reply

    This is simple craft which children can do, and it is so functional! I love how Sophie writes love letters to you! So sweet!

    • Susan October 9, 2014 at 11:08 pm Reply

      Thanks Mary. This is definitely a smaller version than your cardboard mailbox that looks to pro!

  2. Adeline October 9, 2014 at 11:11 pm Reply

    I love this! You’re really so creative and artistic! Will bookmark this idea for the future, when Noah is old enough to appreciate this. 🙂

    • Susan October 10, 2014 at 9:27 am Reply

      An idea that I got from Summer 🙂 It was fun and making this together with Sophie and I think Noah will like it too.

  3. Ai Sakura October 10, 2014 at 8:50 am Reply

    That’s a really nice craft! Lil Pumpkin has a small mailbox too. Want to get the kids to write to one another? 🙂

    Ai @ Sakura Haruka

    • Susan October 10, 2014 at 2:05 pm Reply

      Oh that’s a good idea. Bringing back the pen pal days 🙂

  4. Zee October 11, 2014 at 8:35 am Reply

    What a great idea and the mailbox turned out really nice! I only remember writing lots of letters to my parents when I was young but I don’t remember receiving any :p This is definitely something I will practise when my kids are older!

    • Susan October 11, 2014 at 9:53 am Reply

      I remember she used to give me papers folded into an envelope with little notes for me. Though most of it were the same message, I love you mummy, it made her so happy to see me opening them up and reading it out to her. I’ll still keep them and should make a memory box to show them to her when she’s all older.

  5. lisacng @ expandng.com October 11, 2014 at 9:35 am Reply

    You’re so great to take the time to learn your daughter’s love language! This is a great idea to speak hers and also reinforce her reading and writing!

    • Susan October 11, 2014 at 9:53 am Reply

      It sure is encouraging for her to know that her letters are so cherished by mummy 🙂

  6. Summer October 14, 2014 at 4:14 pm Reply

    Aww so sweet! I love the little envelope and that you took your time to fold the letter into a heart! I just cut out mine into a heart shape. Haha. Becos I forgot how to fold already!! =) Thanks for giving the credit and linking back to me, I got my inspiration online too! And I think it’s so awesome you are learning her love language (I am still reading the 5 love languages of children and I can’t decipher which one Angel belongs to yet) and writing letters from the heart. =) This is such a simple yet meaningful craft right? Let’s hope we can continue filling up the mailbox for years and years to come! =)

  7. […] J’adore l’idée de cette boîte aux lettres en carton, qui ne résistera certes pas aux intempéries, mais qui est tout simplement adorable ! Retrouvez le tutoriel ici […]

  8. […] DIY Ceral Box Mailbox […]

Leave a Reply