February 14th has come and gone! Some people believe Valentine’s Day is nothing more than a “Hallmark” holiday. Others love showering their loved ones and friends with cards and other gestures to show their appreciation and love. Being a “glass half full” type of gal, I really enjoy Valentine’s Day. I love flowers! I always have as long as I can remember.
As a little girl, the neighbors would call my Mom and complain that I picked their flowers. Guilty as charged! On May Day, my sister and I would pick flowers around the neighborhood, wrap them in little notes we had made, and deliver one to every mailbox. My logic at five years old was that as long as I was sharing the flowers with everyone in the neighborhood, I wouldn’t be punished.
Another tradition I loved was sending and receiving Valentines at school, and creating my own Valentines Box! Every student gave every student a Valentine in their Valentines Box at the end of the school day. I loved it! I can still remember painstakingly deciding what to write on each Valentine and getting nervous about letting that special boy I had a crush on him. Circle yes or no. Oh, boy. Then after getting the box feeling embarrassed about who asked me circle yes or no! Yikes!
Creating this little box for my Heartstrings journaling cards reminded me of these memories and just made me feel nostalgic and surprised I remembered so many details with such clarity! Aaron Fender was my crushes name and he had a twin brother, Josh, who had a crush on me. Of course, I had a crush on Aaron! Oh, those were troubled times for my six-year-old self!
First, I covered the journaling box with various Heartstrings patterned paper, using liquid glass to adhere the paper. Then, I used the Cricut Explore and the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge to cut the cranberry cardstock flowers and cranberry stamp pad and a sponge dauber to ink the edges. I rolled the flower spirals with the quilling tool and used liquid glass to keep them rolled. To finish them off, I added a red sparkle to the middle and adhered the flowers to the Journaling
box with more liquid glass. I used lagoon baker’s twine, red adhesive enamel hearts, and an antique bronze heart charm from the Craft Queen charms assortment.
Since I love flowers, I thought I would also share the flowers and chocolate I received for Valentines. Though my husband is overseas, he has a way of making sure I know he loves me and wishes we could be together for Valentines and every other holiday in between. If you follow my Instagram or Flicker, you probably notice that I have been taking all my photos with the flowers! I just love them so much! And I didn’t share any of the chocolates, despite my friends offer to help me out on Facebook! I did only eat two a day until they were gone, so I did try to restrain myself!
No matter what side of the proverbial fence you camp on, pro or con Valentine’s Day, I hope you had a wonderful day and got a chance to cre8time!
Amuse Creative Studio 