Valentine's Day Gifts

I've never really liked Valentine's day. Something about it seems so set on instant gratification and expendable relationships. I wanted to make it a bit more vertically focused this year (and always) for my children. The wikipedia article is really interesting, and I recommend reading it just to have some sense of the original holiday.

It's been made to be more about romantic love and is symbolized now by pink and red hearts and grotesque little cupids shooting arrows at various lovers with hearts spewing out of their eyes. To keep in step with that (mostly false) symbol, I focused my Valentine's gifts for wee friends on pink and red hearts. By keeping in step with some of the modern Valentinian symbloism, I am trying to make these new Christocentric ideas meld right into the modern holiday tradtions so they will always think of Valentine's Day in this worshipful way.

Click the photo to see the citation in the ESV (the bible in which I do most of my study)

Click the photo for the citation in the ESV (the bible in which I do most of my study)

What I did:

• I cut two 4 inch squares out of some very cute but TINY pink denim capris handed down from my mom (Mom, do you remember wearing those when I was in elementary school? ... Then I wore them in college ... Then I had babies. Now they've become cute valentine bean bags!)
• I wrote the verse on the denim with a g-tec. I went over that ink with a magenta Sharpie several times to embolded the word LOVE and the heart.
• Then, right sides together, I stitched them with a quarter inch seam allowance leaving a 1.5 inch opening for turning and stuffing. Iron out your seams. I can't remember where I read this but ironing is like make-up for your sewing.
• Turn it out using the eraser end of a pencil and either stuff it with beans, rice, wheat berries, or poly-fill. Or you can simply stitch it closed and use it like a coaster. If you don't want to stuff it, consider stitching a loop with some ribbon into the top so you can hang it on a nail, door knob, or your finger.

I will also paint the same design on some shirts with red and pink and give them to all their friends.