The Mailboxes and Cricut Challenge 30: Once Upon a Princess

My very good friend Christine told another friend of mine (Cyndi) and me a story about mailboxes that her father, Larry,  had for all his grandchildren.  Many years ago when the oldest grandchild was quite small he had a decorative mailbox in his house.  The grandchild would come in and look at it. One day he put a quarter in it and when the child opened it she was very surprised and excited!  This started the GREAT MAILBOX IDEA!  He began to put money in the mailbox for when the child visited.  As he had more grandchildren he got more mailboxes so that all the grandchildren now have their own mailboxes.  He even has extra boxes for when the children's friends visit.

Cyndi and I thought this was a great idea and decided to incorporate this for our own grandchildren.  I bought a couple of little mailboxes at Joann's and cut some simple shapes out on the Cricut with vinyl.  

When David arrives at my house he makes a beeline for his mailbox!  I love it.  I think I'm training him well.  When he gets to be a teenager and Omie  is not the most important person in his life I will put big bucks in which will keep him coming back! (I hope!)  

Here are the mailboxes...I just finally did one for Taylor yesterday:

I didn't spend a tremendous amount of time on these...they need to withstand little hands and hopefully will for a long time.  OH...and I used the Cricut cartridge Once Upon a Princess which is the first time I've used this cartridge so this counts towards my personal challenge of using every one of my Cricut cartridges!  Although I'm loving my Silhouette Cameo...I still have a soft spot for my Cricut and have no plans to break up with him anytime soon!

So what do I put in the mailboxes?  Stickers, Matchbox cars, candy....that sort of thing.  I am saving the money for when they get older!

And here's a video of David from the other day heading straight for his mailbox when he visited Omie's house on Monday:

Vinyl...I have not worked with it much but boy oh boy did I do it the hard way the first time!  I didn't know about transfer tape and just peeled and stuck with my fingers! LOL!  What a mess!  And I would think...how on earth do people get those wonderful sayings onto walls?!  And then I learned about transfer tape!  I did Taylor's mailbox yesterday in about half an hour and that included finding the designs on the Gypsy and setting that up!  Yay for transfer tape!  

I'm working on a two page layout that just is not coming together.  Does that happen to you?  The idea in the head does not compute to the paper! LOL!  Hopefully I'll get it done today.

But for now...I need to fill the mailboxes as my little kiddos will be here shortly!

Thank you, LARRY BARRY,  for the fabulous idea!

Happy Crafting!