When I was younger, my favorite part of any Valentine’s Day (besides stuffing myself with so many chocolates that I’d inevitably vomit) was arts and crafts. See, if your school was anything like mine, you’d prepare for the big V-Day by creating a little mailbox for yourself and decorating Valentine’s cards for your classmates. On the day of, you’d go around with little pieces of candy and your handmade creations and slip them into each other mailboxes and it was just about the most adorable thing you could imagine. When we stopped doing it in fourth grade, I was heartbroken. At least in part because that meant Andy from down the street would never truly know of my love that year.
He had an iPod and was the only kid in the grade who could pop a wheelie. My heart never stood a chance.
However, this year, I decided that my craftless Valentine’s Days were over. Just because I’m legally an adult doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the squishy feel of playdough and the sweet smell of Elmer’s glue!
And not like that.
So, I set off on a crafting adventure. Using only the stuff in my dorm room, I’d carefully create some beautiful Valentine artwork. When I was in grade school, my work consistently earned gold stars and “WOW “stickers, so I was excited to see what amazing creations I could produce with so much more life experience behind me–not to mention, with scissors of the un-safety variety.
I started by finding some kid’s craft projects on Pinterest and assorted mommy blogs. Obviously, given my wealth of experience, I could have done some more complicated things, but my goal was to recapture the magic of childhood, down to the simple little cut-and-paste directions.
My first project was, of course, a mailbox, so that all my admirers would have a way to express their undying love for me.
Look at how cute this thing is! And fortunately, as Merrilee from the Mer Mag blog INSISTS, it was made with stuff she found lying around the house! Sounds perfect for me, a college student with a budget.
To start, I had to get an appropriately sized box. Given the volume of Valentines I’m expecting, it took me a while, but I found just the thing.
Now we start shaping.
I should seriously get paid for this.
Now, the next thing my buddy Mer grabbed from her crafts closet was duct tape. Now, I only have regular tape, but I figured there wasn’t too much difference. Besides, all we would be using it for is… decoration?
Um. Mer. What the fuck. Who has seventeen different colors of duct tape “just lying around”? I don’t work at the Rainbow Duct Factory as their primary Duct Repairman or whatever the hell it is you do when you’re not SMOTHERING YOUR CHILDREN.
But you know what? In the spirit of romance, I decided to make it work. And the finished product was…
Well, all right, maybe I don’t need a play mailbox. I’m an adult now. I have a REAL mailbox.
I’m above this shit. Time for project 2.
Now of course, one of the most essential parts of Valentine’s Day is the Valentine, a card that will express your love to someone in a creative, cute way. The folks at Activity Village came up with the adorable idea of the hand heart Valentine. Now come on, who wouldn’t want to get that in their decrepit cardboard mailbox?
Fortunately, the only two ingredients for this project were paper and paint. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any paint. So I did a quick look around the room for something vaguely pink that I could soak my hand in, and success!
Thank you, Odwalla!
The instructions say that you’re supposed to do hand stamps from two separate people–you and your Valentine–but I’m alone and sad, so I just made mine with my own handprints.
Now, the final product, as you can see above, ended up looking like a particularly intelligent Capuchin monkey learned to make art with its own urine. However, I got to drink the Odwalla that didn’t end up in this disaster of a kidney-shaped blob, so we’re going to deem this project a success.
Now that I’ve picked up some steam, I decided that I needed something to wear on the big day, so everyone would know who to bow down to as Valentine Craft Goddess. And who better to provide than trusty Leanne from DLTK?
All this cute little crown requires is tape, paper, pipe cleaners, and tissue. I already had the first two, and by some miracle, I actually had pipe cleaners in my dorm room too. PINK ONES. Actually MORE festive than the plain old white ones that Leanne probably pulled out of the trash can. SUCK IT, LEANNE. WHO’S CRAFTY NOW?
However, after my pipe cleaner celebration, I discovered that I didn’t actually have tissues in my room. So I had to use Clorox Wipes instead.
You know what? It actually doesn’t look too far off from the original thing. Let’s face it, Leanne’s design was ugly as shit. Moving on.
Okay readers, I really, truly, honestly did not think I could mess up this next one. It’s a MARTHA STEWART creation, for god’s sake. It’s a magic wheel, you spin it to reveal a secret Valentine’s message from your sweetheart. Adorable, and all available as a handy print out.
However, what I did NOT realize was that the cute little pictures you had to cut and paste onto the wheel actually corresponded to specific phrases that would appear in the other window.
“I dream about” was supposed to end in a cute little picture of a wedding. Now, my Valentine is going to think that on the day I’m supposed to express my love to them, I decided to finally share that I’d been having fantasies about this horny looking Satan character right here.
All right, this has been a disaster so far. My desk is now unexplicably covered in glitter, I smell like strawberry banana, and I’ve been stress-eating disgusting candy hearts for over half an hour. Would someone please tell me that there is a Valentine craft out there that I HAVE ALL OF THE MATERIALS FOR and WILL ACTUALLY LOOK NICE WHEN COMPLETED?
…well. At least I know that someone is looking after me.
