"Fire is motion / Work is repetition / This is my document / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all defenses."

- Cap'N Jazz, "Oh Messy Life," Analphabetapolothology

Thursday, February 14, 2008

my love for you is not enough...

making valentines makes me smile!

happy valentine's day!

surprise, surprise. i'm not usually one to practice commercial holidays, nor do i like it when society prescribes a certain day for the material expression of love for a fellow human being.

but, i am also not one to let that stop me from doing something nice for people, and this year it happened that i decided hand-made, personalized valentines would be a good pick-me-up, for myself, as i enjoy occupying myself with crafts on occasion, and for others, especially some of my friends who have been lamenting their loneliness (some call this moping a FONE - a festival of negative energy. see, they needed some love...)


so i spent some time making non-traditional valentines. that is, they were hand-cut, folded, and sewn - not those cheap perforate-and-fold box set valentines of cartoon characters you find at Walmart - and they were mostly non-traditional colors too - oranges, greens, blues.

a glimpse at my workspace for the first batch of valentines...

it was nice because it gave me good practice with my book-binding materials, and allowed me to experiment with book ideas.

you can see some of the book-binding supplies here, like my awl and my book layout sketches in the orange book - another one of my hand-sewn creations...

here's some of my work:

(front)

(page 1)

(inner message)

(date stamp)

example message reads: "I think you're swell! Let's have some hearty belly laughing bike rides together! SOON!"

another: "I wish I were a vest... So I could be ON you! xoxo, stephanie"

the valentine i made for my boyfriend. and what it said inside:

and my absolute favorite thing? the sailing envelope i made to mail my friend back home her valentine:

(front, sans stamp)

(back)

a finished batch of valentines (look at all the colors and shapes and sizes!):


<3's
-stephanie

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Happy day of expressing sentimental thoughts of love in a non-commercial fashion. :)