The Valentine's Day boxes you made in elementary school. Do you remember them? As I've stated earlier, I can make anything out of cardboard. Evidence - the two hams, the log I made for this summer's production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and every school project I've ever made. I lived for Valentine's day. I was the kid who had the biggest, coolest, most ingenious box every year. No shoe boxes for me - I pulled out the big guns. Hot glue guns that is.First grade: my box was shaped like a computer monitor. Second grade: a giant blue tennis shoe. With laces and those grommet holes that are in the sides of tennis shoes for no reason. Third grade: a giant clown head with a hat. This thing was almost taller than I was. You put the valentines in its mouth. Fourth grade: a yellow dinosaur, approximately 4 feet tall, with a tail and jagged white paper teeth. The cards went in the mouth and collected in the neck. Fifth grade: Heartbreak Hotel. A whole complex with little windows and a giant broken heart atop the building.
My mom usually had to drive me to school because these things were so big. Then I'd have to take my giant box home on the bus. There really was no need for them to be so huge - it's not like I got more valentines than anyone else, I just loved making things.
I didn't stop when my elementary school days were over - I made them for my younger siblings. H got a miniature piano one year. Brown with little painted keys. I even made some tiny sheet music for it. One I made for H2 was an outhouse. It had a moon shaped hole in the door and everything. And a little roof with purposefully uneven shingles and a ventilation thing. Fake slightly rusted hinges. You opened it up and dropped your valentine down the hole. There was even some toilet paper in there I think. I don't know what kind of message that sent, but it was fun to make. I actually reused that outhouse for a last minute tenth grade English class project - I managed to tie it in with Angela's Ashes. Man I'm awesome. And by awesome, I mean lazy.
I miss those days, when school meant getting to make things. I devoted an extraordinary amount of time to planning all of those boxes, and I wish more than anything I had pictures of all of them now. Believe me when I say they were incredible, and so was I.
4 comments:
Can I just say that Valentine's Day and clowns go together really well? I mean, I'd've seltzered myself if I'd seen the clown head.
I guess it just goes to show; they all float down here.
Remember when I tried to convince you to be a graphic design major? School still can mean getting to make things.
You've got me beat. I made one once that was a TV - it had antennae, a cord and plug dangling out the back, a box of kleenex and a remote and a cup with dregs in it sitting on top, and the screen was cut out, and I made a soap opera scene out of toilet paper tubes on the inside. It rocked, but honestly, that's the only one I remember, because I didn't consistently make rocking valentines boxes like you did. I think I threw it away about a year ago.
o my gosh! I completely forgot about that outhouse, and believe me you're downsizing the truth. it was more than amazing, it was spactacular. It should've been entered in American Idol. It can't sing, but before anybody realized that, it would've already won!
Didn't you also make a zoo train with animals and such..or was that for something different? I remember them all fondly.
Post a Comment