more valentine cupcake toppers

My friend Naomi sent me some cute cupcake toppers for the Sweetly Vintage Valentine Toppers swap recently. As I've mentioned, we keep getting partnered in swaps, which is kind of nice because then you know you'll be getting a good package in the mail.

Naomi used adorable stickers to make her toppers along with the pleating technique I used for the holiday toppers I made for Christmas. They're so pretty and so sweet! She also sent me some wonderful glittery Valentine postcards from Cavallini and Company, which I'd seen in stores and really liked. She  was also clever enough to write a note on one of them, knowing full well, I expect, that this would give me license to actually keep it.

In other news, my husband is finally home after a month away, plus my gentlemen friends were staying with us for a few days while they were in town, so it's been a little nutty around here lately. Hopefully things are back to normal, however...I've missed the blogosphere!

bookish valentines

When you were little, did you decorate shoeboxes and paper bags for Valentine's Day? I fondly remember how much fun it was to make them with construction paper and glue and to watch the pile of thin white envelopes and little candies accumulate.

That was the idea behind the Sweets to the Sweet: a box of bookish valentines swap that I hosted. I thought it'd be fun to decorate and fill a box with cards signed by children's book characters, so everyone was asked to pick cards and write short messages that might've been chosen by characters they liked.

I wrapped and glued a cracker box in pretty red and white wrapping paper and then put on a few graphics so it looked sort of candy box-ish. I then printed out vintage cards or images that I found online, and embellished some of them with bits of glitter and ribbon.

I found a penny valentine with a worm on it that was perfect for Ramona Quimby to send to Henry Huggins, since of course she proposed to him with a worm wrapped around her finger; I printed out a Nancy Drew silhouette and pasted it to a doily for a card from Ned; and more penny valentines from Joe Willard to Betsy Ray, from Sheila Tubman to Peter Hatcher, and from Jules to Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family. The only two that weren't real "cards" were the one from Harriet the Spy to Sport and the card to Emily Byrd Starr from Teddy Kent, because he would of course send her something he'd painted himself. I always loved that Teddy had "the trick of putting [Emily] into every portrait that he painted," so I took the liberty of attributing A Meadow Flower to him. (Apologies, Mr. John White Alexander!)

I also used a few cards I scanned and printed from the box of 100-year-old valentines my mother-in-law sent me, including ones from Gilbert Blythe to Anne Shirley, from Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth Bennet, and from Peter Pan to Wendy Darling. It actually made me really sad to re-read the end of Peter Pan again; it'd been years since I read it, so it brought tears to my eyes when Wendy tells him she doesn't remember how to fly. Such a bittersweet ending.

Anyway...I put everything in the box with some candy, and I hope my partner will enjoy opening it. I'm looking forward to getting some bookish valentines of my own to read, too!

vintage valentine cards: the real thing

A couple of months ago, I received a lot of valentines in the mail. Not just any old valentines, but ones that had belonged to my husband's great grandfather and great-uncle. When my mother-in-law first asked me whether I wanted them, I said "Of course!" thinking I'd receive maybe a dozen or so, and they'd be the funny penny valentines you see from the 50s and 60s.

That wasn't the case.

I received a box packed full of cards, enough to fill two large freezer bags plus a big album my mother-in-law had finished. Many of them were made in Germany, and the papers and images they used are just beautiful...lovely colors and script and poems hearkening back to a gentler time. This is what a valentine should look like. Today's blaring colors and offhanded feeling somehow seem garish by comparison.

Quite a few of them are also really huge! Some cover the entire page of the 12" x 12" album, which is astonishing to see. I was also surprised to see how many of them used 3D type raised effects, as well as some interactive ones (moving legs and arms, etc).

Some of the Valentines are dated as early as 1902, and they all appear to be from the boys' mother or aunt. What I find really interesting is that most of them are just signed with no messages on them, but perhaps it's because the cards have such heartfelt sentiments printed on them already. It's also a little funny because there are so many valentines from their female relatives, but I can't find a single one that is marked as being from the boys to them or to/from any of their sweethearts. Still, these meant enough that they've been kept for generation after generation for over a hundred years, which is just amazing. I feel incredibly lucky to have these and am glad to be their guardian for the forseeable future.

I scanned in just a fraction of the cards that I received, but you get an idea of how gorgeous they are. If you'd like to use some of the cards in your crafting, you should be able to download a couple of the single images by clicking on the jpg to enlarge it;  just right click and save to your computer. I'd appreciate your linking back to this post if you use them. Please send me links and share anything you make from them, too!

valentine cupcake toppers + download

I make way more cupcake toppers than I do cupcakes. That's probably a good thing, though sometimes it's hard to remember the need for moderation when you have so many cute toppers lying around.

I hosted a Sweetly Vintage Valentine Toppers swap on Swap-Bot recently, and here are the ones I sent to my partner. I love this assortment of sized-down old penny valentines, which includes a mermaid and a veggie since my partner is a fan of both.

I'm also including a link where you can download a copy of these cupcake toppers and print onto cardstock if you'd like to make your own.  They are easy to embellish with glitter, ribbons, lace, or whatever you'd like!

birdhouse valentine

It's kind of fun to join swaps with restrictions. I recently signed up for one in which you were to send a cheap Valentine package that cost no more than $2 to send and had to consist of at least one thing that was pink. Other than those guidelines, the package could be absolutely anything.

This struck my fancy since I liked the challenge of finding something interesting that was both inexpensive and lightweight to send. I was pleased to see that my partner would be hollycm6, since she's sent to me a few times but I haven't really sent to her in official swap before.

I decided to purchase a $1 miniature wooden bird house from Michaels, which I painted in two shades of pink. It was then embellished with a few small pom poms, shiny heart stickers, a pink grosgrain ribbon, and just a touch of white glitter. I also made a tiny needle-felted bird to set onto the perch, where he's holding a small woolly heart dangling from some striped twine. He looks like he might take off at any moment bearing his little love message.

To make it extra Valentine-y, I think I'll fill the bird house with candy. It's a little silly, but I do like heart-shaped chocolates and things like that around this time of year, and something like that would be perfect.  It's going to be interesting to see if I can find something wrapped that will still be small enough to fit into the opening, though. And hopefully it won't push the weight over the max, ack! Anyway, this was a really enjoyable project...it's so satisfying to make a present that's both cheap and fun.

Incidentally, I know I've been quiet lately, so yes, yes, I admit it. I still haven't found how to remove my Kindle from my hand for more than a couple of hours at a time yet.

valentine's day

Ingredients for a lovely Valentine's Day:

leftover orange scones for breakfast...

Italian sandwiches from Bay Cities Deli...

a long drive up the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway...

sunny picnic at Zuma Beach...

reading books on blankets...

chocolate...

a drive through Topanga Canyon...

tuile and Mexican wedding cookies from our neighbor...

delicious 5-course dinner with sparkling wine...

pretty handmade presents (from Tarina Tarantino, Joan's on Third, and the world's smallest postal service)...

...and a partner who loves you no matter what.

Hope you spent the day with those you love, too.

love-filled package

A knock on the door today yielded an unexpected package: Valentines from my gentlemen friends in New York. Surprises are so nice, especially when they include delicious things like:

*chocolates from La Burdick

*homemade peanut butter chocolate cookies

*homemade tangelo curd

*a hilarious silk-screened necklace featuring Tippi Hedren from Marnie, one of my favorite films of all time

I love the vintage Valentine card that they sent, too. It's addressed to me and my "German soldier," by the way, because my friend recently read Summer of My German Soldier by Betty Greene, which was one of my favorite YA books as well. And because my husband is blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

Such sweet handmade treats! But best of all is the love and thought that went into the package.