Animal Cookie Valentine Box: An Easy Upcycle Target Craft Idea! (2024)

See how to make an animal cookie Valentine box in no time!

It’s a simple upcycle craft idea and only uses a few supplies.

Your child is sure to have the sweetest box at their class party this Valentine’s Day!

Animal Cookie Valentine Box: An Easy Upcycle Target Craft Idea!

I am a mom who loves making things for my kids, especially for their school year fun.

Valentine’s Day is my jam as I’ve created numerous cards and card boxes over the years…and make sure you check out my FREEBIES section to grab some cards for your own kiddo to use!

I’ve previously made a couple DIY Valentine’s Day card boxes for my older son, Rowan (namely, his Love Train Valentine box and his Baby Yoda one), and it was high time for his younger brother to get one of his own.

And since his Pre-K teacher asked for each kiddo to bring in a decorated box to their class party this year, it’s finally Brayden’s time to shine.

After raiding our pantry as well as my craft stash, here’s how we upcycled a plastic cookie container into an adorably sweet animal cookie Valentine box!

Animal Cookie Valentine Box Supplies

Here’s what we used to make this animal cookie Valentine’s Day card box…the best part is we had everything on hand already and didn’t have to buy a single new item!

I just love a thrifty craft project…

• Plastic animal cookie container from Target
• White spray paint
• Colorful mini pompoms
• Glue
• Silhouette Cameo
• Vinyl scraps
  • Holographic red
  • Light blue
  • White
  • Black
• Knife
• Red pipe cleaner

The *PERFECT* Animal Cookie Container

So here is the little inanimate critter (Is it a bear? Or a monkey??) that sparked our imagination for this Valentine’s Day card box.

These frosted animal cookies are from Target and we’ve been buying these delicious confections for years.

Be careful if you’re still hanging onto a New Years resolution diet…they’re quite addictive!

This container would make the perfect Valentine box because it:

• comes with pre-made adorableness, obviously
• is heavy-duty plastic
• has a nice flat surface right on the front which would be perfect for personalization and adding Brayden’s name
• should hold paint well on the inside and glued-on pompoms well on the outside
• has a screw-on lid that would both be easy to cut an opening in as well as remove to retrieve all of Brayden’s party treats
• would throw moderation out the window and give us an excuse to eat allllll the real cookies TONIGHT…just kidding…maybe…

Keep reading to see the full tutorial on how we transformed this container of animal cookies into a JUMBO animal cookie Valentine box!

Step 1: Paint the Container

After washing the inside of the animal cookie container to remove all the excess frosting, sprinkles, and crumbs, I headed outside to turn it from clear to white.

This would serve as the cookie “frosting.”

First, I placed the container inside a plastic bag, just to protect the outside from any random blowback that may occur.

Then the inside was coated with a light but complete coat of white paint.

It was looking super cute already!

Step 2: Add Personalization

While it was left to dry outside, I headed back inside to my craft room and started working on the personalization.

The container has two flat surfaces (one on the front and another on the back with the ingredients and nutritional info), and they would be the perfect places to add Brayden’s name as well as a fun Valentine’s Day greeting.

Since I’m obsessed with my beloved Silhouette Cameo, I pulled out my vinyl scraps organizer and proceeded to cut out all of the vinyl elements.

Brayden decided he wanted black and blue hearts on his decals, so that’s what Momma gave him.

Once cut, trimmed, and weeded, I layered all of the vinyl pieces and made the two decals.

The one with Brayden’s name would be placed on the front of the container so everyone at his class party would know this was HIS Valentine box.

The other generic “Happy Valentine’s Day” decal was added to the back.

And instead of trying to remove the container’s original labels, I just slapped the vinyl decals right over top of them, and it worked perfectly.

Work smart, not hard!

I also cut out a couple black circles for the eyes as well as a tiny red heart to serve as the festive nose.

Step 3: Add PomPom “Sprinkles”

Now it was time to add the “sprinkles” and really sweeten this critter up!

Haha, sorry…I know that was bad. :)

For this step, I pulled out a handful of colorful mini pompoms as well as some glue and a popsicle stick from my WorkBox 3.0 craft cabinet.

Then, I just randomly glued the pompoms all over.

I purposefully did not include any on our critter’s face because I didn’t want it to end up looking like rainbow acne. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Step 4: Cut Opening in Lid

The final step in Operation Brayden’s Valentine Box was creating an opening in the lid to allow his classmates to add their treats at his class party.

For this, I enlisted the help of my husband.

After I drew the shape of the opening I wanted (I just traced a Post-It note pad as it was the perfectly-sized square), Matt used his Leatherman to cut it out and smooth down the edges.

I then glued a red pipe cleaner around the opening’s edge to both disguise the cut lines as well as add some festiveness.

And with that, we were finished!

Our Finished Animal Cookie Valentine Box!

Here’s how Brayden’s animal cookie Valentine’s Day card box looks!

I think it is just the cutest little thing and almost looks sweet enough to eat!

On the back, there’s the Valentine’s Day greeting as well as more colorful sprinkles, and just look at that little tail.

So much cuteness going on, I tell you what.

The opening up top is the perfect size for tiny hands to drop their treats, and the lid can be twisted right off for Brayden to retrieve them, if needed.

Here’s a handy before-and-after…not a bad glowup, eh?

Needless to say, Brayden was very excited to take it to his class party. :)

If You Enjoyed This…

Make sure you check out these other fun and festive Valentine’s Day ideas!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Happy Valentine’s Day!