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I’m not gonna lie, this craft evolved out of annoyance that I had let eggs go bad. I emptied the egg carton and decided to make lemonade out of lemons so to speak. There are endless possibilities in an empty egg carton.

We’ve had Love Monster by Rachel Bright since Squeaks was a baby.

It was one of the books she received at her shower. It’s a sweet little book about a monster who lives in a land of cute cuddly things, but he’s just a “slightly hairy I-suppose-a-bit-googly-eyed monster”. So he goes on a search to find someone who will love him just the way he is. A super cute story all year long but especially fun near Valentines Day. And great inspiration for my empty egg carton. We made mini love monsters! Complete with fuzzy arms for hugs and big opening mouths to hold little love notes.

I decided this would also be a fun way to count down to Valentines Day in addition to our 1 Corinthians banner. Our banner will focus on how God loves us and how we should love others. Our love monsters will hold little notes to each of the kids to find everyday with thing we love about them! We officially have every angle of love covered. Haha!

 

You’re going to need:

• An egg carton
• Scissors
• Paint
• Paint brushes
• Glue
• White paint pen (optional but makes teeth easier to draw on)
• Pipe cleaners
• Googly eyes
• Construction paper
• Heart shape paper punch (optional)

First cut out just the cups from the carton. Cut off all the edges so they’re smooth. There will be some opening on the back and sides of your monster where the carton dividers were. The openings on the sides will be where the monsters arms go.

I let the kids pick the colors they wanted for their monsters but I went with red to stay true to the story. We added black dots using q-tips but you could just use a paint brush too. The kids also enjoyed polka-dotting their hands, because why not? I added teeth to our monster using a white paint pen, but again you could just use a paint brush.

Once the paint is dry, glue on some googly eyes. Who doesn’t love googly eyes!? Again I stayed true to the story and only did two but of course the kids did as many as they could.

Last we add the fuzzy arms so our love monsters are “slightly hairy” like the one in the book. Put a little glue around the inside bottom of your monster and coil the pipe cleaner around the inside. It tucks in nice and snug with the two ends sticking out the opening on the sides made by the carton dividers we cut off. I folded the pipe cleaner ends back on themselves to get rid of the sharp ends.

The blue heart on the monster in the book gave me the idea to add little love notes inside our monsters. I used blue construction paper and a heart shape paper punch (you could just use scissors) to cut out hearts and write little notes to the kids. Each day between now and Valentines Day I’ll write a note on another little blue heart with something I love about Squeaks and Little Dude. Squeaks got super happy about her first note (I added them during nap/quiet time). Little Dude was a little less impressed (two year olds, wadda-ya-gonna-do?), but I’d still like to include him. We’ll add Flash next year.

What fun ways have you found to show love to your kiddos on Valentines Day?