Inspire Imagination With The Purrfect Box Tops Collection Box

This is a sponsored post written in collaboration with Costco and Box Tops For Education.  As always, all opinions are my own!

Want to inspire imagination in your kids before they head off to school? Why not have some fun making the Purrfect Box Tops collection box.

This is a big year for us. It’s going to be the first year I’ll have two kids in school full time. My little Keira is starting Kindergarten and she’s beyond excited. She’ll finally be going to school with her big sister Ashling, something she’s been looking forward to for a very long time.

This means I’ll also have twice as many reasons to support our local school and the easiest way I know to do this is by collecting Box Tops. We love Box Tops and I’ve been collecting them for years. When I was a teacher, I’d collect them for the school where I worked and once Ashling started school, they all went with her. She’s competitive like her mommy and always wants her class to win the Box Tops challenges.

It doesn’t take much effort to collect Box Tops since they’re already on so many of the foods and other products we buy. We probably make a fortune for our school just from Cheerios alone. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though. They’re probably on at least half of the things in our pantry!

Last week we paid a visit to Costco to get stocked up. Not only are we planning ahead for our lunchboxes, we have a couple short road trips planned and we’d need plenty of snacks. The first thing I saw at the front of the store were the big boxes of Fiber One Oats & Chocolate Chewy Bars. I just had to pick some up for myself.

The individually wrapped bars are easy to throw in my purse or my travel bag so that I can have a quick snack on the go. Like the name says, they provide 35% of my daily fiber, plus they have no artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners. It doesn’t hurt that they taste so good too!

Of course while we were there, we had to stock up on our favorite Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast.  I also picked up a Fruit By The Foot variety pack. What kids doesn’t love these?! Like the Fiber One Bars, they’re easy to take along on road trips and they’ll also be great for lunchboxes once school gets under way.

Last year we kicked off the school year by making a fun Shopkins collection box our Box Tops. My oldest was really into Shopkins at the time so we went with that theme. This year both my girls are obsessed with their cats and as soon as I asked how we should design this year’s collection box, my oldest suggested that we make it look like her cat, Sugar (a.k.a. Sugie). That sounded like a good idea to little Keira too so we went with it.

I love how crafting inspires imagination in my girls. As we walked through the craft store, they came up with all kinds of great ideas for our cat such as big wiggly eyes and sparkly whiskers.

Want to make your own Box Tops collection box? Grab the kids and head to the craft store!

Materials:

A rectangular box (I used my Fiber One box)

White foam sheet

Black foam sheet

Pink foam sheet

White construction paper

Large wiggly eyes

Silver or black chenille (2)

Material for tail (rope, chenille, etc)

Glue gun and glue sticks

How To Make The Purrfect Box Tops Holder

Start by placing the end of the box on the white construction paper, tracing two squares, then cutting them out.

Hot glue the white squares to each end of the box (I used hot glue for every part of this project).

Using a razor or knife, cut a flap in the back so you can retrieve your Box Tops when it’s time to turn them in. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect…it’ll be covered up in the end. My razor was missing so I used a knife and it was slightly uneven. Nobody will ever know.

Wrap the rest of the box with white construction paper. Don’t forget to cut a slit in the top for your Box Tops.

Use a pencil to draw a cat head on the foam. I started by tracing a bowl, then added cat ears.

Cut out the head and glue it to the end of the box, opposite the flap.

Here’s where you can get creative. We were inspired by our own cat so our box looks like her (well…close). Cut shapes out of the black foam to make your cat look like this one or feel free to create your own unique kitty.

When you’ve put the black accents where you want them, add wiggly eyes, a pink nose and a mouth.

For the whiskers, take two pieces of chenille and cut them into thirds. Hot glue three pieces to each side of the nose. I was going to use black but Ashling and Keira wanted the “sparkly” ones. I’ve definitely got a couple of girly girls on my hands!

Next, cut paws out of white foam. I cut one and once it was shaped the way I wanted, I just traced it three more times.

Since our cat has black spots, we used black foam to make the spots and hot glued them onto the body. We also added a spot over the flap in the back to hide it. When we need our Box Tops, we can lift the flap to slide them out, then push it back into place.

Finally, our cat needed a tail. Originally, I was going to use a piece of rope but then I remembered we had these tubelike pieces left over from another craft. They actually came from a Halloween headband that we’d cut apart last year and they were perfect for our tail.

When our Box Tops collection box was finished, the girls loved it, especially because they really thought it looked like Sugie.

You can compare for yourself. Okay, so Sugie might not have giant cartoon looking eyes but overall it turned out pretty good. Now see if you can find a second little cutie in my picture…

We had so much fun with this project and now it’s becoming a yearly tradition! This was the Shopkins box we made last year…

…and here’s Ashling with this year’s Box Tops Collection Box. I wonder what we’ll be making this time next year.

Want to join in the fun? Costco wants to help inspire imagination in your kids too!

How to Enter Costco Sweeps:

• Take a photo about how Box Tops for Education inspires imagination in your kid

• Preferred ways of entry: Instagram or Twitter
• Can upload to microsite as well but is not the preferred way of entry

What kind of fun box would you make for your Box Tops? Would you model it after your own pet or do something different?