In February, for most of the last 23 years, I have made a valentine for my friend Robert. He is an appreciator of art, and I can say exactly what I want to say when I make it myself.

Last year was an exception. I was at Walgreen’s looking for birthday cards for two of my granddaughters, when I happened to find a beautiful valentine card that said what I was thinking, in a much better way than I could have said it.

This year, I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but the valentine started to evolve anyway. In January, the leader of my local art group asked us to bring some 4” x 4” square pieces decorated with hearts of some kind, to be mounted into one large piece.

I made my four squares on watercolor paper by cutting heart shapes out of scraps of printed papers.  The tiny hearts are sequins. However, the morning of the meeting to assemble the large display, I was too exhausted from yard work the day before and went back to bed. I took them to the next meeting, but she didn’t need them.

Last Thursday, the group was using spray paint and stencils on some paper hearts. I brought the squares and spray painted the back sides, hoping to come up with an idea of how to make these into a valentine for this year.

Fortunately, we have had a lot of rain days, so I had time to come up with a way to connect the squares together. Since both sides were decorated, I couldn’t just apply hinges like I would have if I had actually planned the project from the beginning.

I laid out the four squares so that the cut hearts alternated with the spray painted sides. I have a roll of white Tutu fabric from an estate sale, from which I cut three strips about 1¼” inch wide.

I glued half of a strip to the left side of the spray painted square with matt medium. I glued the second strip onto the right side of that same square. The third strip was pasted on the left side of another spray painted square. I had to let this dry, and then turn it all over in the correct order, so I could work on the other side.

I pulled the unpasted sides of the fabric between the squares and glued them to the spray painted edges on this side. I let them dry, with some weight, over night. In the morning, I trimmed off the excess fabric. This makes an almost invisible hinge that can be bent either way.

Then, I had to come up with some words, which I typed and printed from the computer. After cutting around each phrase as close to the letters as possible, I used “Yes” paste to secure them to the spray painted squares.

To soften the white printer paper, I used a pale peach color watercolor pencil to lightly tone the paper, and blended it with a damp paint brush.

This has been one of the simpler valentines I have made for my man. It stands up easily as a table decoration. The hardest part was deciding what to say.

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day