Valentine's Day Shoebox

A note came home in Big Cowpokes "booksack" (aka bookbag) the other day. It was declaring that the first grade would be having a shoebox contest for Valentine's Day. I love crafty contests. They are so much fun. I love to brainstorm. The ideas just start flying through my head!! Parents were aloud to help with this project, so the game was on.

Big Cowpoke and I rummaged through his toy box and found lots of cool stuff to put on his shoe box. We wanted to go with a Wild West theme. That is Big Cowpoke's favorite. Then all we needed was a shoebox. I do not keep shoeboxes. I toss everything out. But it just so happened that the other day Mr. Cowboy bought new work shoes. So, we had a huge box to work with. The first thing we did was cover the box. We took a red bandana and covered the lower half and then tan paper and covered the top half.

Big Cowpoke was incharge of the glue and I did the cutting. Then we took the old Elmer's Glue and spred it all over the top of the box and put real barn dirt on the top of the box!! The boys loved this part.
It was some serious fun!! A bit messy but with boys, but really what isn't messy with boys? After that I made a small backdrop for the box. I drew a few mountians and a few old town buildings. I made a Saloon. Then thought about that after the fact, "This is for a first grade project, should it say Saloon??" But it was glued on and that was that. We then cut some grass for the cows and some water for the buffalo and put on the charaters. Big Cowpoke wanted a corral for the horse. So we got some woodchips from the landscaping around the house and made a heart shaped corral. That took some glue. Giddy up horsey!! That horse was about missing it's head, but it was the only one that would fit in our corral. We even gave Annie Oakley a heart balloon. Big Cowpoke kept asking, "Why is that lady wearing a dress and holdign a gun?" I tried to explain it to him, but he just wanted to glue her on. He wanted her waving at everyone. We had Indians and a buffalo. The buffalo was drinking from the stream. Big Cowpoke has a great imagination. He put all the charaters where they were to be glued. That kid can tell a story. In the end Big Cowpoke wrote, Happy Valentine's Day on the front of the box and cut out a bunch of hearts to put around the sides of the box. He was so excited. It turned out great. I asked him yesterday who won the best shoebox contest. He didn't even know what I was talking about. Why don't boys care about anything? It didnt' take 3 seconds for the two boys to rip all the guys off the top and run outside to play with them in the dirt. It must be so much fun to be a boy!!