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