Thursday, February 10, 2011

Valentines as Art...









All images by Amanda Brooks via I Love Your Style...


I am normally a pretty early riser (likely due to the fact that I go to bed at an embarrassingly early hour), but for the past couple of days (for reasons totally unbeknownst to me) I've been waking up at what can only be described as a freakish time -- otherwise known as 3:30 a.m.

Yep...I am officially 80.

It's actually kind of nice (aside from the fact that I'm exhausted beyond belief by 4:00 in the afternoon), as I have all sorts of alone-time to get stuff done. This morning I read, watched a couple of episodes of 30 Rock, did some writing, and, yes, there was also a bit of time spent perusing the interwebs (ok maybe there was a lot of time spent perusing the interwebs, but I'm not saying for sure).

During what I will now refer to as "Blogfest 2011", I happened upon Amanda Brook's fantastic blog, I Love Your Style, which is a compliment to her book of the same name. And after stumbling upon it, I may have read through her entire archive (again not saying for sure). I was particularly smitten with her post about some of the art in her home, much of it homemade, featuring several large framed homemade valentines...

I love this idea of a big, artful, framed valentine for your sweetie or your kids. So much better than a card that gets tucked away in a box. It has my wheels turning for sure. Right now I'm planning to give the girlies each a little Atsuyo et Akiko "love" totebag with some new markers and art paper + a little candy tucked inside, but now I'm thinking I need to throw a little homemade art into the mix too.

I'm curious, how do you guys celebrate Valentine's Day for your significant other and/or kiddos?