My daughter loves to use her imagination when playing which I just love! And we had this old mailbox that we had taken out when we first moved and replaced with a locking mailbox. This old mailbox has been sitting around for four years now, so I decided to transform the entire thing for a a creative mailbox idea for our kids play structure.
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Materials Needed for a Creative Mailbox Idea
- Old mailbox
- Spray paint
- Scrap wood pieces
- Hand Sander
- Cricut Machine
- Outdoor vinyl
First step was to spray paint the whole thing, I chose a lovely sage green color that covered up some of the rust spots and would blend nicely with nature.
I then used my Cricut machine and outdoor vinyl to create a fun address (I combined the kids’ ages and the year we moved here) and then I had the kids choose a symbol they wanted to represent them on the mailbox. My son chose a baseball and my daughter chose a fox.
In addition to painting the mailbox I wanted to make it even more fun and create some “mail” to go in it. I searched through our scrap wood pile and found several small pieces (I needed to cut a couple) and gave them all a good sanding.
I debated whether to paint the wood pieces first before applying vinyl but in the end after painting a couple I found that I did not like the spray painted look and decided to go natural.
And then I used my Cricut and outdoor vinyl to cut several stamps and names to put on the wood to look like “envelopes” for them to be able to play outside. If you don’t recognize the two names on the wood that is because each of my kids chose their favorite Pokemon character. My daughter loves it. She can’t wait to go play outside and pretend that there’s mail in the mailbox. And it’s a good way to upcycle an old mailbox.
