valentine's boxes

i had no plans to post anything tonight but as i looked over what i needed to accomplish for the next couple of days, i decided this might help some mommy, somewhere.

my boys love valentine's day. they love the candy, the cards, the fun little gifts. they love it all. what they don't love is a bunch of pink hearts and flowers. 

each year i get tasked with decorating shoe boxes to hold the kids' valentines. (*tip*: find some place in your garage to store empty shoe boxes. you will need them at some point and as soon as you throw them away, you'll get your next "shoe box" assignment.) this year my boys were staring at the boxes and wondering what in the world we could do to make them look cool.

here's what we finally decided upon:

the boys thought these were perfect...and definitely *boyish* enough to satisfy them on valentine's day. i'm happy to say they are made by kids and look that way. it took a little bit of time to help them out but they are so excited to take their creations into class.

the only part that created a bit of a problem were the eyes. we just used wooden kabob sticks broken in half and taped them to the back of the eyes. problem solved!

what about you? any cool, creative ideas for your children's valentine's boxes?