Sunday, February 12, 2017

Simple Hot Air Balloon Valentine Box

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My daughter is in her last year of elementary school and surprisingly didn't want to make a Valentine's Day box.  She is normally really creative and loves stuff like this.  Must be the "I'm too cool for that" attitude that comes at this age.  Unfortunately, most moms in this day and age would have just made the box for her. I however think they need to make their projects themselves.   I know I am not the norm in this thinking.  I told her to pick something, or she'd be the only kid without a box. I think this is a big problem in todays society, parents doing their kids school projects.  When I was a kid we did the entire project ourselves.  Everyone's might not have been as professionally looking as they are today, but you could tell they made it themselves and really tried hard.  I think when you over help your child, it tells them they aren't good enough, and it hinders their creativity.  These projects are life lessons, so at the very least, let your kids help.  I have one friend who doesn't even let her kids pick what they want their Valentine's Day box to be.  She completely designs and creates the box.  Newsflash parents, it's your kid's box not yours.

Now I'm not saying just let them go crazy and get frustrated trying to figure it out.  It's ok to give little helpful opinions or help with their design a little, but for the most part it should be the kids designing and making the box. 

So, she decided she wanted to make a hot air balloon for her Valentine's day box. She looked around the house to see what we had that might be of use to her.  She found an old basket and pulled the handle right out of it.  She found some leftover balloons from her Dad's birthday party.  She also found some chopsticks leftover from our recent take out.  This took her about ten minutes to gather supplies.

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She blew up the balloon, to make sure it was going to be big enough.

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She decided to wrap pink ribbon around the chopsticks to make them more girlie.

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She decided hot glue would work the best to hold the chopsticks to the basket.

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She found a ribbon off a gift a neighbor had recently given us.

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She hot glued the bow and chopsticks to the basket.

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She asked me if I thought the hot glue would pop the balloon.
I told her if she is very careful and put the glue on top of all four sticks, and let it cool a bit it might be OK.  If not we can always try the LOCTITE vinyl, fabric, and plastic glue.

The hot glue worked great we waited long enough to cool, but still be runny.

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She decided the basket looked a little plain, and wanted to cover up the glue spots where the basket met the chopsticks.

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She glued bows where the balloon met the chopsticks.

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She decided to add more bows on the bottom as well.

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She did this all the way around the basket.

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From start to finish she spent about 30 minutes on her hot air balloon Valentine's Day Box.
It's really simple, but she designed it and made it herself and that's all that matters.

I think it turned out pretty cute.  We as parents need to step back and not control our kids projects.  They are suppose to be learning and be creative.  If we do it for them, all the learned is they aren't good enough.

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She did later use black glitter stickers to spell out her name on the balloon.

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