Wednesday's Word -- Valentine

Comic Valentine from mid-19th Century: 
"R Stands for rod, which can give a smart crack,
And ought to be used For a day on your back."

It's that time of year again -- the time when I spend countless hours on the challenging quest for valentines that my daughters will agree to give to both male and female classmates alike on the one hand (can't actually say anything about LOVE), and that won't cost me an arm and a leg or require me to participate in the over-commercialization of the day on the other. 

{Did you know that "antivalentinism" is a word?!  No, I didn't either.  If you are either opposed to the consumerism that goes along with Valentines Day, or you don't appreciate being forced to express your love on a designated day, then you are an antivalentinist.  I suppose I satisfy both of those criteria, although my main issue is disdain for mass-produced cards with popular cartoon characters on them.  (As an aside, I may give Cinderella Ate My Daughter a read . . . .)} 

The hard truth is that the kids just want the little chocolate candy you've taped to the card anyway.  The rest ends up in the garbage.  But despite holding this truth to be self-evident, I can't stop myself from undertaking massively time-sucking efforts to craft homemade valentines.  The internet is a wonderful thing, and there are many great ideas out there.  Here's what we did last year.  And here's what we're doing this year.  (I think the deep truth is that I do in fact very much enjoy artsy-crafty things and am frustrated with the lack of right-brained activity in my life . . . . :)   

So, has your curious mind ever pondered on the origin of "Valentine"?  As far as I can tell, most of what we know is just speculation and conjecture.  Here are a few short bits. 

• Some say the day has its roots in an archaic Roman pastoral festival (Lupercalia) that was observed February 13 to 15.  But the festival had nothing to do with romantic love or friendship.  Rather it involved sacrifice of two goats and a dog and anointing of foreheads with sacrificial blood (wiped off the knife with wool soaked in milk).  Sounds fun.  I particularly like that the priests that have blood wiped on them are supposed to respond by smiling and laughing.  Okay.  Next up was a sacrificial feast with priests dressed in goatskins running around the walls of the city striking onlookers with thongs.  Girls and young women would line up on the route to happily receive lashes in order to encourage fertility and ease the pains of childbirth.  Put that on a Hallmark card!
• Some say the day finds its origins in the story of St. Valentine, who was reportedly executed because he was a Christian and wouldn't convert to Roman paganism.  Some even portray Valentine as a priest who was secretly performing marriages in violation of a law passed by Roman Emperor Claudius II (who supposedly thought unmarried men make better soldiers).  Another tale adds that Valentine healed the blind daughter of his jailer and left her a note on the eve of his execution that was signed "From your Valentine."  
• The first recorded link between Valentine's Day and romantic love came from Chaucer who penned in a verse to honor a royal engagement:  "For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."  I don't know, but isn't February still a bit cold for birds to be choosing mates (especially in England where Chaucer lived)? 
• It was many, many years before the modern day tradition of cards, candy and flowers.  (Which I must observe has since evolved into this typical scene:  I stop on the way home from work on February 14 to buy a few odd items at the local grocery store and witness a sad procession of men standing in the checkout line with flowers, chocolate and card in hand.  Now what's the point in that I ask you?) 
• The romantic aspect of the celebration started with hand-written notes and then handwritten notes eventually gave way to mass-produced greeting cards.  The gifts didn't come into the picture until the second half of the 20th century.  The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately 190 million valentines are sent each year in the U.S.  And add to that an estimated 15 million e-valentines sent in 2010.  Wow.  

As for me, I don't plan on sacrificing any animals, nor on dressing in goatskin.  I don't care to be flogged in an effort to increase my fertility.  I will see if I can find any birds choosing their mates on February 14, but I'm skeptical.  Nor do I intend to purchase any valentine day cards.  That doesn't mean, however, that I'll abandon the valentine-day-crafting extravaganza that has taken over my dining room table.  That's just good clean fun.

100 Things

Well, it's that time of year again.  The day that time-strapped, weary procrastinators like myself stay up into the wee hours creating some item of apparel with 100 items of some sort or another affixed.

Yes, it's the 100th day of school tomorrow.

My kindergartener is supposed to attach 100 items to a painters hat (provided).  I haven't heard word one about what my 2nd grader is supposed to be fabricating, and to tell you the truth, I can't bear to know at this late hour.  She has assured me that she doesn't need 100 beads sewn to a shirt or 100 barrettes in her hair or any such thing.  I'll just be holding my breath at parent pick up tomorrow in case I'm relying on bad information.  You know it will be all my fault.

It's been quite the day.  I've flown 4,000 miles (not kidding -- don't ask), and no, I did not abandon the practice of law for a flight attendant spot.  At least the night is still relatively young.  And I decided to glue and not sew this year.  (WHAT was I thinking last year?)

On a completely different topic, doesn't this sound like a lovely idea?  There's just something about receiving a package that brightens the day, you know?  I arrived home road (air?) weary to find an anthropologie box on my doorstep tonight.  That helped :)

Time to Murder and Create, And Time for All the Works and Days of Hands

My excellent babysitter helped my girls throw a princess party, complete with streamers, princess hats, necklaces, streamers, cake and balloons galore (51, according to my daughter Hannah, who says she counted before her little brother started popping).  With all the balloons underfoot, we've been getting creative about ways to put them to use.  One great way is Papier Mâché.  At least in theory.  Maybe not so much when the gooping flour/water mixture is chafing your hands and splattering like some sort of acid rain around your kitchen no doubt to be rediscovered some years later.    


Our Papier Mâché creation is rather pitiful at this point.  The balloon popped prematurely, resulting in a collapsed portion that we made a sad attempt to patch.  But we will persist with the project.  It's my nature, after all, to plod along once I've started on something (in life and Papier Mâché alike) long after it ceases to matter or make sense.  Perhaps I'll post the results.  


But as I was contemplating the fate of our creation, I smiled at the memory of a menagerie of Papier Mâché creatures one of my brothers and his wife created at a family reunion a couple of years ago -- much to the delight of all the nieces and nephews.  They labored for days, forming a lounging man, a fish, a multi-legged insect of sorts, and all kinds of other creatively wonderful things.  And then we hung them from a noose in the ceiling of the cabin we were renting and bashed them to bits to allow the candy we stuffed inside to rain down.  I, for one, was against the murder.  The creation was too precious.  My kids are still talking about it.  In fact, my girls saved the severed tail of the mermaid for months until I had the chance to quietly dispose of it.  

Do you like creating things with your kids?  In our family, I have found that when it comes to crafts, the joy is often in the journey rather than the destination.  At least that's what I tell myself when I throw away the love's-labor-creations that took hours to make and then became clutter.  

In case you'd like to try some Papier Mâché goodness of your own, here's a pretty good how-to link.  

Something Crafty This Way Comes

Here's something simple that made me happy this week.  And it was my 10-year-old neighbor who taught me.  Here's how you can use color Duck Tape to make a cute hair clip for your little girls (if you have any).    I already had these simple supplies in various drawers (that need to be organized) in my house.

Here's what you need:

1.  Color Duck Tape.  Have you noticed all the colors and patterns these days?  There's so much more than metallic silver to choose from.  I found mine at a craft store (Michael's).  I also used some Japanese masking tape for contrast (I bought mine from Happy Tape -- who knew tape could make you happy?  It can!), but you could also just cut and use thin strips of Duck Tape.

2.  Bobby pins.

Here's how you do it:

Here are the supplies

Pull about 6 inches of tape (depending on how wide you want the bow clip to be) from the roll and stretch it out without cutting it.  Fold in half carefully, making sure not to create wrinkles.  

Now cut so you have a two sided piece of colored Duck tape.

Next fold your piece of Duck Tape fan style along the wide edge of the tape.

Grip it in the center.

Using a few inches of a contrasting piece of tape (again, I used Japanese masking tape, which I love for all sorts of projects), wrap it around and around the center of your bow.

It should look something like this.

Now take a bobby pin and insert it in the back of the bow, with the shorter part of the pin going underneath the tape strip in the center of the bow.

And here you have it.  It takes all of 2 minutes.  Childs' play. 

 (And my 7-year-old took all of these photos except the last one.)

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

1.  Pocket Notebooks by Scout Books.  You can even design the cover with your own artwork.  

2.  Personalized address stamps by Primele.  

And a couple of crafty things I would like to try:  

1.  Decorating ziplock bags with Sharpies like this.

2.  Making fabric tape like this.  

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

1.  Happy Tape.  Look at this idea and this idea for using it.  Like it.

2.  Rhapsody Playset from CedarWorks (my 7 year old daughter wants one of these, but she'll probably just have to dream on).

3.  Hair clips and head bands from Vintage Bloom, for my girls.

Have a great weekend!

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

1.  The Stars Are Against Me Tonight by Dan-Ah Kim, available on Etsy

2.  Schumacher Trellis stationery.  So pretty, but I've made similar creations on the cheap with help from this book and wallpaper scraps.  You might try using something like this or this or this.  Or you could stencil an envelope liner using one of these cool stencils.

3.  These pretty, spring-y plates from Crate & Barrel (that my kids couldn't break).

Have a great weekend!