Valentine's Day, How I Love You

Ever since I was a child, my family has celebrated Valentine's Day together. My dad would cook dinner (veal saltimbocca), and we would exchange cards and gifts. One Valentine's morning as a little girl I awoke to my Samantha doll dressed in a new nightgown, fresh off the sewing machine of my mother. Another year, as a hopeful teenage artist, my dad gave me two Windsor and Newton watercolor brushes. I know this sounds like I'm all about the presents, but I look back on our family celebrations with great joy, and those memories have made all my Valentine's days happy, even ones when I was single.

So this year, with our new family, I wanted to start our tradition off right. With the newborn, my time is a little limited, but I did manage to cook one of DH's favorite meals, homemade pizza (I use the term "homemade" loosely: the pizza consisted of Trader Joe's dough and sauce:). And....


I cut the ham into heart shapes, because I want to be one of those cool moms that makes food look like something. We finished off with a lemon yogurt cake (which I tinted pink; I couldn't help myself). For his part, DH surprised me with beautiful deep red roses; he is the best.


All in all, it was a success. Next year, Baby and I will be doing some art projects for Daddy, but for this year, I needed to keep it simple.

How do you celebrate Valentine's with your loved ones?

Vintage Valentine

I was brainstorming with some other ladies on a forum about how to organize/display vintage valentines, when I remembered I had already created a book with that theme. This flag book was made using vintage postcards, most around 100 years old, that I had collected. I designed this book so that the backsides of the postcards with the writing, stamp, and postmark would be visible, because I think this is the most interesting part. The writing is legible, and it's fun to read the notes and imagine what people's lives were like back then. I get the impression that they used postcards 100 years ago like we use the telephone or email; a lot of the letters are just one or two sentences to arrange a vist or an appointment.

If you're interested in making your own flag book with ephemera or other scraps of paper, check out this great PDF tutorial.