Create a Cardboard Play Mailbox

With three pieces of cardboard containers, some tissue paper, glue & paint, you can make this mail box meant for indoor play. All you need is some craft foam and a brad fastener to mail the flag for it and some more craft foam to make some letters to play with.


My son helped me make this and loves to play with it. 

 All I did to make these was cut pieces of craft foam in half and write names & addresses on them. Other than this top one, I used the names of our friends who were over for our play date, so it would be fun for them to read their name on the letters.

You can also check out the fabric valentine envelopes I made for the kids too.

 The top of the mailbox is created by using a juice box with the top cut in three sides and the spout cut off. I think put packing tape over the enter lid and pulled the tape taut so that there was smooth sides to cover.

 Here is all the supplies I used to create the structure of the mailbox.

 I filled the base (rectangular box) half full with rocks from our landscaping. This will enable to to stay still and not be knocked over when kids are playing with it.

 I then traced around the mailing tube used as the pole so that I could cut a hole in the top of the box and insert the tube.

 By inserting the tube in to the box I helped created a sturdier base. I then placed tape around the outside of the pole on to the base.

 The next step was to a glue/water mixture and cut strips of tissue paper.

 We did paper mache over the entire project. I would have not been able to paint successfully over the juice container or the tape, so a layer of paper was needed so that the paint could "stick" to something. Let this dry completely before painting.

My son helped with the painting and he thought that each of the three pieces needed each of the three colors.

I ended up using acrylic paints on this because tempura paints would not cover thick enough and printing on the packaging would show through. This could be remedied by doing another layer or two of paper mache if you wanted to use tempura paints, or doing 2 coats of acrylic paint worked just fine too.

To make the flag, all I did was cut out a flag from crafting foam and then used the end of a scissors to poke a hole in the mail box and flag, then attached it with a brad fastener.

There will be lot so much imaginative fun to be had!