Cardboard Mailbox Crafts

Birthday Card Mailbox

Create a mailbox for your child's next birthday party to hold cards given as gifts from friends and family. One idea for a birthday card mailbox is a treasure chest to fit a pirate or princess-themed party. Cover an old shoe box with brown postal paper and draw lines with a black marker to make it look like wood. Cut a lock plate from gold paper and glue it to the front of the box. From the shoe box's lid, cut an arc from each end, using the full length of the short ends of the box and tape a piece of flexible cardboard to the rounded section of the lid ends to create the arched treasure chest lid. Wrap with postal paper and decorate the lid to look like wood with the black marker. Tape one long edge of the newly arched lid to the back of the shoe box and cut a large, envelope-sized hole in the top.

Store your winter holiday cards in a mailbox craft made from cardboard materials. Cut a cardboard square measuring 7 inches by 7 inches and wrap with holiday gift wrap and tape. Wrap an empty toilet paper tube with the same gift wrap and glue it vertically to the center of the cardboard square. Cut a 12 inch by 6 inch rectangle from thick cardboard and a 12 inch by 15 inch piece of thin, bendable cardboard such as poster board. Bend the larger, thin cardboard into an arc shape and attach each end to the longer sides of the thicker cardboard rectangle with tape. Wrap the mailbox frame in gift wrap. Set the arc and rectangular mailbox frame onto another piece of thicker cardboard and trace the shape with a pencil. Cut out two of those shapes, wrap them in holiday gift wrap and tape one to the end of the mailbox frame and the other is taped only on the straight edge for the mailbox door. Cut a mailbox flag from the cardboard scraps and tape to the side of the mailbox. Glue the mailbox to the other end of the toilet paper tube to finish the mailbox.

Piece together the fronts and backs of cereal boxes with duct tape on both sides to begin creating a class valentine mailbox. You need one 10 inch by 15 inch piece, one 5 inch by 10 inch piece and two 5 inch by 5 inch pieces of bendable cardboard. Spray adhesive to each side of the pieces of cardboard and adhere Valentine gift wrap to both sides of each piece of cardboard, one side at a time. Attach the 10-inch ends of the large rectangle cardboard piece to the 10-inch edges of the smaller rectangle with tape or hot glue, creating a large rounded hump in the large cardboard piece as the mailbox top. Trace the mailbox opening on one end onto each of the 5 inch by 5 inch squares and cut them out. Pump hot glue around one end of the mailbox frame and adhere the cut shape to the mailbox. Adhere only the straight edge of the other cut 5 by 5-inch square piece to the bottom section of the mailbox with a piece of clear packaging tape, allowing it to be flexible like a hinge. Cut 1/4-inch strips of self-adhesive hook-and-loop pieces and adhere them to the top of the mailbox and the top of the hinged piece to keep the mailbox door closed. Add a flag from a wooden tongue depressor and a paper rectangle. Add foam heart stickers to the outside of the mailbox, if desired.

Construct a free-standing mailbox with cardboard for a dramatic play area or just for fun. Cover the label of an old oatmeal container with white construction paper. Enclose a heavy rock in an 8-inch cardboard box and secure the flaps closed with packaging tape. Wrap the box and a holiday gift wrap tube in a white wrapping paper. Trace the round opening of the tube onto both the top of the cardboard box and the oatmeal container. Cut each circle out carefully with a craft knife and pump a stream of hot glue around each opening, connecting the tube to both the box and oatmeal container. Decorate the mailbox with foam shapes, markers or glitter pens and attach a red paper-covered cardboard flag to the oatmeal container with a brass brad.