I have always been fond of Valentines Day

I liked it so much when I was in grade school. For one thing, it was a bit of festivity in the middle the Minnesota winter. Christmas was a long past, spring still a long way off. Valentines Day added some color and interest.

But mostly I liked it because it meant playing with paper and scissors and paste, and being able to use my imagination. In school we made construction paper cards for our parents, and decorations for the bulletin boards and windows. (Much cheerier than the plain white paper snowflakes that had been taped up all though January). But the best part was making our mail boxes.

Everyone brought a shoebox from home. Then, for what seems in my recollection like a whole week before the big day but was probably only a couple of days, we pasted white butcher paper over the outside, and ruffled and ruched pink and red crepe paper swags, and worked rosettes of tissue paper and added more construction paper hearts (if there was still room). The best part was that, while the teacher gave us some ideas, we could really do whatever we wanted. Mine were always just beautiful, if I say so myself.

The teachers wisely and kindly decreed that no one had to bring valentine cards, but if you did there had to be one for every student in class, and they handed out mimeographed class lists so there could be no mistake. This ruling was fine by me because 1) I wasn't too sure how many cards I would get without it and 2) more importantly it meant more playing with paper and scissors at home.

In those days you could buy boxes of little cards and envelopes all set to go. But the Ben Franklin had something much better: books about the size of paper doll books, with pages of valentines printed on light card stock to be cut or punched out. They were all different. Some larger, some smaller, some humerous, some romantic in a Victorian sort of way. A few of the best had glitter. The envelopes, printed on lighter paper, had to be cut out and folded and pasted together. And then there was the process of sorting them all and decideding who got which card. Nothing romantic for any of the boys, that's for sure. I saved the doves and forget-me-nots and glitter for the girls, who, hopefully, would be more likely to appreciate their asthetic refinement.

Making Valentines sort of disapppered from my radar through Jr. High and High School. Since then, I've had a couple of periods when I hauled out paper doilies and stickers and contruction paper, and thoroughly enjoyed the process. But what I would really love would be to have my hands on one of those Ben Franklin books again, just to see if they were anything close to as wonderful as they seemed at the time.

Looking back like this, it's sort of surprising I'm not a scapbooker. I guess it's because I discovered yarn before that trend took off.