Valentiney (well, Anytimey) Greetings

In the daily shuffling of life and love it is all too easy to forget that the connections we have made with one another - friends or family, past or present, big loves or small - are, indeed, real. Upon a request from a special someone to reprint the "This Connection Is Real" card featured in a past post (see "Lauren's Last Day" May 2011), I decided to post it for sale in time for Valentine's Day.

We get to choose who we want to hold close in our hearts, despite geographical or temporal distance, and each day we get another chance to remind one another that that thing we shared once, long ago, is still very much real.

Please visit my Etsy site to review and/or purchase this very unique Valentine card!

Friend Valentines

I had forgotten to post these when I made them in February. My favorite letterpress printer, boss, and designer extraordinaire, VSM, gave her interns an alphabet stamp set for Christmas, which I decided to put to use for some one-of-a-kind valentine cards. Since many of my good girl friends - from college and otherwise - are now scattered around the country, I like to send the occasional snail mail to let them know they're still in my heart.

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Getting back to basics with the alphabet stamps

 

 

Balloons for my college roommate

I might make more of these for next year

For that romantic fellow student of literature

Hearts for everyone!

My Valentine

My amor and I love to read aloud to one another, but he left for Argentina before we could finish our current book, The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupery. For Valentine's Day I thought I'd send him the next chapter in the form of a tiny accordion book:

Maybe I'll add a border, or a "binding"?

Before coloring

Before I added color and pop-up illustrations.

After I added pop-up illustration and color!

Here's the Geographer.

Top view

In his full three-dimensional glory

I added this map, which does not appear in the original book.

Close-up of the Geographer's map

Valentine's Day isn't so big here (in Italy).

But on this particular lover's day,

I

woke up early
delivered a ton of flowers
ate chocolate
gossiped in the back of the flowershop

about the locals.


made some money
spent some money

got buzzed with a good friend
drank wine and ate delicious bread
talked about our Biggest Loves and Biggest Heartbreaks

and realised that, in both cases, they were the same person.


started the evening at the theatre to hear Torino's symphony
ended it walking home at 4am

from Peruvian Night at an Italian disco.