What could be better then a big brilliant sunflower? Why, a sunflower that also shares good thoughts and positive messages with everyone! It’s a colorful craft project with a lot of heart, much like the author of this very special story time book.
We read Hubie by Barbara Valenza (Potato Publishing, 2021). Hubie is an unhappy horse who seems to attract bad feelings and problems. Overwhelmed, he shouts for help…and help arrives! A brilliant creature kindly explains that Hubie is a magnet, attracting both positives and negatives. She encourages him to learn from the negatives, and focus on the positives. Taking her lessons to heart, Hubie transforms his life from misery to joy.
Barbara Valenza has been featured on our blog before! Take a look at the wonderful story time and interview for her picture book, Little Lovedog’s Long Walk Home.
You’ll need:
- 1 paper towel tube
- 1 small box, bucket, cup, or flower pot
- Construction paper
- A butterfly template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
- Scissors, tape, and glue for construction
- Markers for decorating
Our sunflower construction was very basic…a paper towel tube served as the stalk, and then we attached construction paper petals and leaves. If you’d like to add a little texture, use cardboard to create the sunflower’s face, then glue brown tissue paper fringes on it:
In the story, Hubie the Horse uses a dented bucket for his sunflower, so we snagged these cute mini buckets on Amazon. But a box, paper cup, or flower pot works just as well. We also added green crinkle paper around the sunflower’s base to steady the stalk. Now for the message butterflies!
Color and cut the butterflies from the template, then add a tag with a positive message on it. You can attach the message butterflies directly to the sunflower, or you can do what we did and turn them into magnets! Our magnetic butterflies attached to the metal buckets, but we also slipped paperclips on the petals for the butterflies to rest on. Gift a message butterfly to friends and family, and they can proudly display them on their fridges!
We also had a special surprise for our story time kids. Barbara Valenza famously sewed stuffed animals of her book characters (check out her Little Lovedog dachshund). Well, here’s Hubie, her awesome horseshoe magnet horse:
As a nod to her marvelous sewing skills, we had a drawing for a GIANT stuffed horse at story time. Here’s our happy winner…she was quite enamored, and her Dad emailed me later and shared that she insisted it sleep next to her that night.
This story time was full of love, laughter, positivity, joy, and delight. This was very intentional, as it was also a celebration of Barbara herself, who passed in February 2024. Hubie has a special place in my heart, and I was extraordinarily honored to share her final book with our community.
One last magical thing. Barbara’s husband Mark came to the event and brought copies of Hubie for every family! It was incredibly generous, and I very much want to thank him for coming and celebrating with us. Kids weren’t even waiting until they left the library to enjoy the story of sweet Hubie the Horse.
Basically, just cover the box with cotton balls! The fluffier, the better! For the face, we used large, 1.5″ eyes stickers from Oriental Trading Company (a roll of 100 pairs is $2.50), and a bit of 
Then, out came the 
Our robot project has something very special inside – open its chest door to reveal a burst of birdsong, straight from the heart! And for an extra story time surprise, a life-size robot stopped by for hugs and high fives! Here’s the robot project in action:
But you can also use a large tissue box. Just use a box cutter to create a hinged lid out of the bottom of the box like so:
Next, fit a small box inside the large box. The small box is the robot’s chest cavity, so you will need to place it near the center or the large box. We did this by hot gluing a packing tape core to the bottom of the small box, then attaching the whole assembly inside the large box with more hot glue.
You’ll notice that the lid of the box is cut into 3 sections. These sections eventually fold over to form the front of the robot. Secure the top and bottom sections closed with tape, but leave the middle section open so you can access your bird whistle later.
In the above image, you’ll also notice a small square cut in the back of the box. That’s for the mouthpiece of the bird whistle. Use a box cutter to create the square, making sure your cut goes through both the large and the small box. Next, cut a bubble tea straw down to approximately 5″, and slide it onto the mouth piece of a wooden bird whistle (we got ours on Amazon, $8 for 12). Just make sure the little opening in the whistle isn’t covered, or the whistle won’t tweet!
Thread the straw through the square hole in the back of the box. Now your bird whistle is resting inside the box, and the bubble tea straw is extended out the back.
Time to decorate the robot! We offered extra boxes for heads, poster board strips for the arms and legs, tin foil, mini aluminum cake tins, 
So that’s the project, but there’s ONE thing we did to make this story time extra special. Instead of giving the kids bird whistles while they were making the project, we waited until everyone was finished. Then, a LIFE-SIZED ROBOT came walking into the gallery, carrying a flock of bird whistles for the kids to choose from!
That’s Ian in there, expertly playing the robot (also on his resume –