Handmade Valentines

One of my absolute favorite grade school memories is the yearly Valentine’s Day party. I don’t recall any specific one, but I just remember having a ball making little paper crafts with hearts and doilies for all my classmates, exchanging them to fill these giant envelopes we made out of construction paper, and then having an all-out sugar extravaganza with candy and cupcakes galore. Even the kids who weren’t particularly friends with each other caught the spirit of love and goodwill on this day and managed to offer some token of appreciation towards everyone there. It was a Utopian vision of hearts and cupcakes.

As an adult, I still love to make Valentines. Even after helping my kids make all of theirs, I always manage to find some leftover time and energy to make some for friends and loved ones. Whether out of paper, fabric, glitter, lace, doilies, yarn or wool, they are just plain fun to make and give away.

This year’s project for my childrens’ classmates involved knitting, which is something I very rarely try my hand at. I knitted all these little red rectangles and stitched them up the sides with white yarn, leaving a flap at the top to make envelope pouches. I crocheted the little buttonhole loops and sewed on some wooden heart buttons my son picked out at the fabric store. Now the the kids will fill them with Valentine notes, or whatever catches their fancy, to put in the pouches. Since they are twins and in the same class, I figured one knitted pouch to each classmate with a Valentine inside from each of them would work out nicely.

I have also been busy making these sweet little Valentine Faeries to sell on my Etsy shop. Their sparkly wings and silk flower petal skirts are all red and white, and each one has a wool felt heart. You can see more of them here on my Etsy shop at: http://www.mountainhearth.etsy.com/

For my son, the little wild bird lover in the family, I needlefelted a baby redwing blackbird with a heart on its breast. They have been starting to appear in our mulberry tree singing their beautiful songs lately to let us know they’ll be returning with the warm weather. I’m also working on a little lavender sachet for my daughter out of a recycled red wool sweater and a vintage heart doily I found at the thrift store. I love incorporating vintage linens into craft projects!

I thought I would include a couple of previous year’s projects to share ideas with crafty folks out there. These were a simple fabric Valentine my kids gave their friends last year. We cut out hearts from some thick cotton quilt lining and smaller hearts from some polyester quilting squares I ended up with along the way. These were just fabric glued together, and then we stitched lace around the outside edge. In the middle, we wrote “Love” with glitter glue pens, and sewed a button over the “O”.  The cool thing about this project was that it was made entirely out of stuff I had lying around. I didn’t have to go out and buy anything.

One of my absolute favorite Valentine projects are these colorful watercolor hearts. I got this idea from my friend, Leeanne. I just cut out hearts from thick watercolor paper, then dip them in water and do a very runny application of paint so it swirls around and has a very soft look. Once they’re dry, I write quotes and affirmations on them. Then I smear some Elmer’s glue very thinly over the top and sprinkle on all kinds of different glitter.

Some of them are fun to leave up all year round!

One year I made larger ones and glued small round mirrors in the middle that I found at the craft store. Then I wrote “You are Loved” over the top, so whenever you walked by, you would get that message with your reflection.

For folks in colder places, I recently read this blog post on the Enchanted Tree about making colorful ice hearts to hang from the trees outside. I doubt we will have weather suitable for such a stunning art display this year, but here is the link for those of you in frozen lands: Ice Hearts

So, to all those busy crafters out there, I wish you joy with your paper, fabric, lace, yarn and whatever innovative materials you are working with. Craft on!

“Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.” 

 ~Malvina Reynolds