Valentine's Day

I know -- I'm a little "behind the eight ball," as my mother would say, in posting these pix. Alas, I actually had more pictures of our family Valentine's dinner, complete with a beautifully set table and heart-shaped personal pizzas, but all the pictures on my memory card mysteriously vanished. I had been remiss in uploading them to my computer for quite some time, so we lost some significant evidence of memories made. Oh well. Amen (in the "so be it" sense;).

Anyway, we're not big on BUYING stuff to celebrate things like Valentine's Day, or other such excuses for Hallmark to make big bucks, but my dh and I have gotten into the habit of making something for each other. After all, what says "love" more than time spent hand-crafting something for that special person? Perhaps you saw the collage I made for him last year in my post entitled Artistic Endeavours. (It, by the way, won second place at a fall fair as a mixed media entry. Never mind that I only remember seeing two entries!:P) Here is the altered book (It was an Usborne board book. Scandalous for a former representative, I know!) I made for him this year (with a heart over his name. It is the www, after all ;):

The cover is plastered with Valentine's cards I received as a child. Does that make them "vintage"? ;)

I did paint the background on this, but otherwise it's cut and paste and stickers. The kissing couple is from an old art calendar.

If you click on the picture, you might be better able to see the calligraphy around the swirls, which were already on the scrapbooking paper I used. I just wrote some of the verses from I Corinthians 13. I didn't want to cover up the pretty swirls, so I didn't know what else to put on the page!

This is probably my favourite page. The woman is a cut-out from an art calendar, and the grid bits are drywall tape. The poem is on graph paper and written using only the letters in the word "sweethearts." I saw the idea in a book of poetry, but the poem is original. The red and gold wires actually spring up, which is kinda fun, I think:)

This page is reminiscent of the letters we used to send each other before we were married, when we lived in different cities. We would decorate the envelopes with drawings and cut outs from magazines. No, I didn't lick all those stamps -- but I did glue each one on!

This is the lovely necklace that my beloved made for me, mostly from beads we already had at home. I love it!

Do you have any creative (and inexpensive) ways of celebrating Valentine's Day?