Happy Valentine's Day

I know I'm a few days late for Valentine's Day, but I finished my Valentine bookmarks this morning and gave them to my co-workers today.  Better late than never, I guess.

Because I'm in a year-long class with renowned calligrapher Reggie Ezell, I have been practicing the basic Blackletter hand as well as a few variations.  I decided it would be good to incorporate these into my Valentine project this year, and I can also use this as homework to bring to our next class.  These are a few of the finished ones.

These were quite a challenge to make, and I must admit that I kept only about a dozen of the over 30 that I made. One of my biggest mistakes was to forget the "g" in extravagantly, so the word read "extravantly" on many of them!   The white is Dr Martin's bleedproof white ink, and the red (which is a bit hard to make out) is Windsor & Newton gouache.  I mounted them on red cardstock and embellished them with ribbon, hand-painted paper hearts and hot foil dots.  

You might remember that I did these last year.  They seem to have been easier, but perhaps I wasn't as worried about having good letterforms as I was this year!

I think it was the year before that I made actual Valentine cards using Zentangle hearts.  It's fun to see the various projects that I have given as Valentines over the years.

I would love to see what Valentine projects you came up with this year!

Happy Valentine's Day

I was playing with painting some paper to use for Valentines, and decided it might be more fun and practical to make Valentine bookmarks instead.  I cut out the size I wanted as well as some smaller hearts and shapes, lettered on a nice saying, and played with the design.

After mounting the bookmarks on cardstock and adding a ribbon, I also made some little boxes that I embellished with some of the shapes, and put a couple of chocolates in each.

 Here are some of the finished bookmarks.  Since I work at a library, they were the perfect Valentine for my co-workers.

 Wishing you a creative and fun Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day (late . . . again!)

Our calligraphy study group did a Valentine exchange last week-end, but because life sometimes goes speeding by too fast to notice, it has taken me a week to photograph some of the Valentines and blog about them.  One of the great things about having a group like this is that we get to share ideas and learn from each other.  The Valentines were all wonderful, as you can see.

Kathy made a heart out of hand marbled paper, and you can see the contents of it below.  Marge showcased her delightful lettering with the verse below.

 Here you see the inside of Pat's hand lettered card, and Joyce's tag -- hand lettered on paper that she designed herself.

 Here is the outside of Pat's card and the inside of Kathy's.

Barb's sparkly heart shaped card is next to another shot of Joyce's card.

 And this is the front and inside of mine -- lettering and "zentangle" decorated hears on the front and hand lettering with white ink on the inside.

 Whatever the date, I'm wishing you lots of love today!

Another Valentine

Here's another of my attempts to create a Valentine, albeit a little late:

From me to you with love!