Valentine's Art Gifts 2012

Valentine's Day has traditionally become a time for our family to get creative and celebrate love with pretty decorations and heart-shaped personal pizzas (more about that in another post, most likely ;) This year, it was DD9 and I who went to town making Valentine art. Inspired by one viewing of these Crazy Hearts Club collages, DD9 made these for some of the people at our table (and then some). (She had an extra, so though she wanted me to have a surprise, she decided to make one for me, too.) 

She likes her paint muddy -- and I have to get over that. It's all about the process for her -- and I love that she just delights in painting. I bit my tongue after suggesting once that she try to keep her colours bright. Who am I to tell her what her colours should look like?! 


We added the thready texture to the hearts by gluing on some remnants from the wool that I used for my project below (the litter of which was still sitting on the art table!). It's glittery litter -- so we were both happy to find a use for it :) 


Here is the special card she made for Daddy, inspired by this one I pinned to my pinterest board because I liked the idea:

We recycled some of her old art for the heart (she traced around a cookie cutter in the spot that appealed to her most) -- and I love how it goes with the background paper she chose. 

The inside has one of those fanned paper hearts that I helped her make with an assortment of papers, including recycled art, waxed paper, vellum, and scrapbook paper.

She used an old dyno tape label maker to create the words inside the card, which she had painted silver. 

I used the same label maker for my card, which was inspired by this Love Map. I didn't have a bunch of old maps to cut up, nor did I have a suitable picture frame, so I modified the idea to make a simple Valentine's card for my husband. I mapquested the places we met, married and live, then simply printed them on photo paper before cutting them out in heart shapes. 

 Not quite as eye-catching as the original, but it works for the occasion :) I can't bring myself to pay the outlandish prices for a store-bought card!

For several years running now, I have made a Valentine's gift for my husband. Inspired by this Valentine's Day Love Album, I made good use of my time during my last chemotherapy treatment. After pumping myself with some caffeine to counteract the effects of the Benedryl, I spent the morning creating this alphabet book to commemorate significant aspects of our love relationship. I had a nosey nurse -- she kept asking what I was writing for each letter and trying to read what I'd written! LOL I didn't mind, especially since I knew I'd be posting about it here, but I thought she was rather brazen in her nosiness ;) Of course, I'm not sharing the whole alphabet (that would be boring!) -- but I will point out that I took the idea a step farther and added a scripture verse for each word I'd used to correspond with the letters of the alphabet. That took forever! For the actual book, I kept things simple by using a pre-cut pad of colour-co-ordinated cardstock (with varied designs) and black letter stickers from our dollar store stash. I bound them with a Xerlox binder comb -- easy-peasy. 

Finally, my DH got creative a while back after I sent him a link to Skip to my Lou's Valentine's ideas. He picniked a photo and prepared a bunch of these for DS5 to give to his friends:

Pretty stinkin' cute, don't you think?


Have you enjoyed some seasonal creativity lately? This morning you might have seen me in our back yard sawing off the top of a dead tree (don't worry -- it was small!). Check in later this week to see how that tree top fit into our Valentine's decor! :)


I shared these creations at: Amongst Lovely Things' Pinterest Challenge: