Improvement List: Valentine's Day

Friday, February 14, 2014

Happy Valentine's Day

At our house we keep the holiday light and fun. My husband and I are celebrating by going out for dinner on Saturday night. I also helped my children pick out a really funny card for them to give to him. Each child got a chocolate heart surprise in their lunch boxes. Just a small treat, so they know that their mom loves them.

Today, I am sharing a Valentine themed list.

Easter has Cadbury Cream Eggs, Halloween has Candy Corn, and Valentine's Day has Sweethearts.

What would you do if you were given one of these?

Stamp your own Conversation Hearts.

The most romantic day of a Princess's life.

Do you still need to send a Valentine?

Inspired flower bouquets.

You could give something like this to the one you love.

And this is how it all started.

What are you doing to celebrate Valentine's Day?

Via

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Give a Valentine's Day Card

Via

Did you know that we have a women named Esther Howland to thank for the array of Valentine cards given at this time of year? It all began in 1848 when she designed and sold her first elaborately decorated Valentine. Her cards, complete with layers of lace overlaid with colored paper underneath and three dimensional details, became so popular that she was dubbed the "Mother of the Valentine." One card even had a mechanical bouquet in which pulling a string moved flowers aside to reveal printed verses beneath.

File:Esther Howland Valentine card, "Affection" ca. 1870s.jpg

Via

Giving Valentine's Day cards quickly became all the rage during this time. Dickens described in All the Year Round a card making workshop located in England this way:

[They are] in a long room occupied by nymphs, each one having at her elbow a pot, not of color this time, but of glue. Strewn before each girl in apparent confusion, but really in regularly-assorted heaps, lie hearts and darts and doves and bows and arrows, and rose-buds and true lovers’ knots, and torches of Hymen, and every variety of emblem appertaining to love and matrimony… Some are paper, some are silk and velvet, some tinsel and gold-leaf.

Sounds like a lovely place to work to me.