Valentine making party

Our mess

When we were kids, my best friends, Sarah and Leah, and I used to get together with our mothers and their aunt Martha to make elaborate, Victorian, over-wrought Valentine's Day cards.  Someone—I think it was Sarah and Leah's late mom, Hannah—invented a technique for creating these big, stuffed fabric hearts that protruded like sentimental little pot bellies from the front of our construction paper and doily creations. 

The originals: Leah, Sarah, and Martha

We made dozens (collectively, hundreds) of them over the course of many years for many different people: boyfriends long gone, parents deceased, friends whose names we've since forgotten.  And here we still are, surrounded by rubber stamps and old magazines and bits of ribbon and scraps of fabric, making valentines.  This time with our own kids.  We don't do it every year, but yesterday we did it big.   Its kind of like our modern-suburban version of a sewing circle.  Or at least it's as close as I come to that sort of thing.

Maggie, grandma, and Georgia making valentines

A snippet from the party:

OLIVER (holding up yet another stale conversation heart): Mommy, can I eat this?

ME: No, honey, you've already had enough and that one has glue all over it.

OLIVER: No, I already licked it all off. 

Some of our handiwork.  Cute, huh?

A thing I like

This photo by Christian Chaize of a beach in Portugal.  I love the colors.  I love the composition.  I love the vibe.  You can buy a print at Jen Bekmans' 20x200 gallery here.  I would, but I'm still not buying anything.  So do it for me.  I can live vicariously.