Valentine's Day Sensory Box

As I mentioned, the winter sensory box didn't happen.  Not because I forgot about it, but mostly because I couldn't come up with a cool idea for it.  She enjoyed the fall one (even in Decemeber), so I knew I wanted to do a Valentine's Day one.  I want to make it worth my while, so we started this week and will use it all through February (and maybe even into March).

The box

It's contents (and where I got it)

1. I saw these really cute burlap hearts at Hobby Lobby, but I didn't want to pay $2 a heart.  I looked for burlap to make my own, but they were out of the regular brown color.  Burlap would be a fun texture to throw in, huh?  Anyway, I bought a 50 cents piece of fun felt and made my own little heart pillow.  I already had the other supplies.

2. When digging through my scrapbook stuff (see #9), I found this really textured piece of red stuff--it's not paper, I don't know what to call it.  Anyway, I was going to try to use the heart punch on it, but it wouldn't work.  I just cut two big hearts from it.  It was sort of scratchy like burlap would have been.

3.  These came in a 3 pack from Hobby Lobby.  All of their Valentine's Day stuff was 30% off.  I want to say these were originally $1.50?!

4. I had a gift card to Target, so I picked up a few things from the dollar section.  I thought window clings would be a fun addition to the box.  These turned out to be Olivia's favorite.

5. I used a box of leftover flower petals from our wedding.  FREE!

6. I bought a pack of doilies at HL. They were around a dollar.  I used some in the box and I am going to attempt to use the others with Olivia for an art project. Double whammy!

7. A pack of four ribbons for a dollar from Target.  (Thank you gift card!)

8. These were also from the dollar spot at Target.  Isn't that place great?  There are 6 little clothes pins with hearts on the top.  Great for fine motor skills!

9. I punched out some hearts with random scraps of craft paper that I had. FREE!

10. I bought a pack of feathers from Hobby Lobby.  After using feathers at Olivia's birthday party, I knew these had the potential to be a little messy, but I wanted the box to be full.  The pack was around $2 and definitely helped to make the box!

All in all the whole thing probably costed around $10.  But since I used a gift card for $3 worth of the items, and a coupon for 40% off one of the items, it ended up costing me around $6.  Not too bad!  The best part is, that Olivia won't remember these next year so I can use them all again! :)

I could barely get the bucket on the floor and she was digging in!

As she found each ribbon, they went right around her neck.  Imagine that!

Like I said, the window clings were definitely her favorite.

She added the word "sticky" to her vocabulary.

When Michael saw all the supplies I bought for the box, he asked if I could wait to show it to her until he was here.  How sweet is that? Because of our crazy week, it ended up that we did it over the weekend.

He put the window clings on his glasses and this is the look Olivia gave him.  Yep, she's mine. :)

Some of the rose petals were silk and some of them were sheer.  That was nice, because it gave an extra component for us to talk about, feel, listen to, etc.

Oh look--another "scarf"

This is fun!

There was another item that wasn't pictured.  You can see it in the bottom right picture.  They were 3D foam roses purchased from Hobby Lobby.  Olivia wasn't impressed.

This was her favorite sensory box yet.  She spent over a half hour playing with it and even then she wasn't sure if she wanted to be done.  She will get a lot of use out of this in the next month or two.