Valentine's Heart Swap

The mailman brought love to my door yesterday - my Victorian Paper Heart Swap arrived very nearly the moment after I finished my post from yesterday! I was so excited!!!! I sat on the couch admiring the lovely heart that Heidi Meyer made for me for the longest time. Then I very carefully opened and oohed and aahed over each of the little packets of goodness that accompanied the heart. I even used some of the lovely little pieces of ribbon and lace already in a wrist cuff I'm making!!!!

The big heart was quickly hung in the center of our fireplace mantel and will probably stay up loooooooooong past Valentine's Day as it is so beautiful! You can see all of the beautiful hearts crafted by this bunch of amazing women over at the Vintage Dragonfly and see more about Danielle Muller, the lovely woman who organized it all!

I also realized that this is my 100th post!!!! What a milestone!!!! I wasn't sure how I would like this blogging thing but I am addicted - it is thrilling for me to see where it is that people are stopping by from, all over the world, places I can only dream of traveling to at this point, all 50 states - I am amazed!!!! To celebrate this momentous occasion, I'm having a little giveaway. I made up an extra little packet of vintage-y goodness for the heart swap. If you want a chance to win the packet, become a follower of my blog and leave a comment here answering the question, "What is your favorite Valentine's Day food to make or eat?"

As for me, I have many and have tried many over the years including chocolate-filled croissants, chocolate raspberry cheesecake, and this year I attempted chocolate macarons. They didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped, hence no pictures, but I will persevere and keep perfecting my technique. Even though they don't loo perfect, they taste super yummy! You'll also see there is a common denominator here - clearly I am a chocolate addict and so happy to be able to eat chocolate again again after my surgery!!!!

Happy Valentine's all and have a wonderful weekend - romantic for those of you with a partner and filled with so much love no matter who you are!!!! And don't forget to enter the contest by 10:00 pm EST on February 14 - Valentine's Day!

Valentine's beauty

I've been stalking the mailman all week (not really, but I have been looking out the window about every five minutes since Monday). You see, back at the beginning of January I committed to taking part in a Victorian Paper Heart Swap organized by the lovely Danielle Muller over at the Vintage Dragonfly. Of course, at the time I committed to this very fun creative opportunity I didn't realize that I would be having surgery a short time later! This just meant I would have to speed up my creativity a bit and move up my own personal deadline to get everything sent off to Danielle.

The dozen of us that participated were each charged with creating a large hanging heart constructed of papers and other lovely vintage-y elements. We were also to create a dozen little packets of vintage-y art supply goodness to be contained in a space about the size of a postcard. Now each artist is anxiously waiting to get our fun mail with a big heart created by another wonderful soul and twelve little packets of new artsy stuff to play with! As we speak I am looking out the window at our mailman to see if he's carrying a box for me!!!

While I'm waiting, I thought I would share a pic with you of what I created to share with the others. After a fun trip to one of our great antique stores to supplement the supplies I already had, this is what I came up with. Bits of tulle and tatting, vintage french music sheets and a cute little couple of french children along with a touch of my calligraphy. I think I was trying to put myself back in my high school french classes! I only hope they like it as much as I LOVED putting it together!

Happy New Year!

I'm sorry I've been away so long! The holiday season ended up being busier than anticipated in spite of not traveling anywhere which turned out to be a very good thing as I was under the weather for most of the week between Christmas and New Year's. This month is also filling up with doctor's visits that I hope will get me on the mend!

In the meantime I'm going to busy myself with a fun swap (in addition to all of my regular work and responsibilities). One of the blogs I follow, the Vintage Dragonfly, is hosting a Victorian Paper Heart Swap for a limited number of participants and I made it in. So, I'm gathering up my supplies and getting to work. The participants will each create one handmade victorian paper valentine using fun vintage-y stuff. We'll also create a number of tiny treasure packets for all of the participants. I can't wait to see what everyone creates and sends along in their little packets!