Variations on a Theme

Look familiar? Well, the words should look familiar at least, from my Ornament Thursday project for January. This card says (in shaky, shaky letters) "I love you" in Pig Latin (my favorite kind of Latin). Why, you ask, am I making very amateur-ish looking Valentine's Day cards? Perhaps you think you've reached the wrong blog?

Well, okay, I am taking a slight detour from jewelry-making and knitting. It has to do with a long-standing custom in our household. Since the Husband and I started dating we've had a deal not to buy gifts for Valentine's Day, but to make cards for each other. This was our little way of making the holiday slightly less commercial in tone. And I say "cards" very loosely - the year before the Short One arrived, my husband made me a sign that said "SMOOCH" in neon-like letters (it was really made of some kind of luminescent tubing), and, in the past, I made him tiny origami hearts that I placed in an origami folded box. Of course, the SO was our Valentine's gift to each other the year he arrived, and given our time constraints since then, we've radically pared back our projects for V-Day.

I thought this year that an actual card might make a refreshing (and easy) change, so I went to the local paper shop, bought an ink pad, a cute pig stamp (I already had letter stamps - the ones that I use on PMC), and some card stock. How hard, I thought, could it be to make a simple Valentine? Well, apparently, I just don't have the knack for it, as, an hour later I'd manage to stamp everything in sight and had covered myself and all inanimate objects around me with red ink (thankfully, H. did not ask why the computer kepboard looked vaguely pink the next day). This is the cleanest copy of this particular card (I have a different card that I will show you another time) that I came up with that night, and I clearly need to try again. I have a far, far greater appreciation for people who scrapbook than I did before I started this endeavor. Me, I haven't even sorted my wedding photos yet.

Anyway, that's the debacle of the day. Actually, that's one of the debacles of the day. Even in the face of another intense winter storm and up to 12 inches of snow tonight, I still fired the kiln to take care of of a custom order (and a few other things - I don't fire my kiln half empty if I can help it). I raced around to finish the piece, took the photographs, got everything ready - and then discovered that Etsy is currently experiencing a bug that's preventing anyone from uploading photographs at the moment. Grrr.

Perhaps I'll try again, instead of banging my head against the computer. Have a good day, everyone. Thanks for stopping by.