Sunday’s valentine-making Crafternoon at The Painted Cloud was a love-filled good time. I want to say thanks so much to Samara, who runs the cloud, for welcoming us into her beautiful, warm space. There were lots of good folks, good fun, and good craft supplies. In fact, we had so many supplies to choose from, it was hard to know where to start.

Here’s the tidy Before photo:

And the messy, fun-was-had-here After photo:

Lots of friends both old and new showed up for the love note making.

And I even managed to craft a bunch of cards this time! Most Crafternoons, I’m so busy chatting that I barely manage to make one card, but this time I was determined to get my craft on as well as my chat on.

Here’s the one I made for my delightful husband. I call it “Love Machine”. Hilarious, no?

And below are a mix of cards that Rufus and I made for family and friends.

And to really make the week super-lovely, I was fortunate enough to go on Whole Living on Martha Stewart Radio the next morning. It was my second time doing the show, and it was so fun! The producer and the sound engineer were making valentines in the studio while we were broadcasting. Is that awesome or what? They even posted some of my valentine photos on their blog, which was really exciting. You can read more about it here:

http://blogs1.marthastewart.com/radioblog/2009/02/whole-living-gets-into-the-valentines-day-spirit-.html

I hope you all have crafty, love-filled days tomorrow!

In just nine short days, hearts will be all aflutter in the name of love. And you can count my heart among them, ’cause I am all about the valentines. Even during my single-est days, I still dug the sweetest of all holidays, since it’s a great excuse to make cards for all of your loved ones, not just your kissing buddies. In fact, Crafternoon was born from a valentine-making party I threw for my momma back in 2002, so of course I’ve got a soft spot for the 14th of February.

And this Sunday I’m going to be hosting my annual Love in the Crafternoon at my friend Samara’s beautiful children’s art center, The Painted Cloud. I absolutely cannot wait to get crazy with some gluesticks. But I’ve got some prep work to do! Saturday is baking-and-paper-mining day. Yes, I have to go through my stacks of delightful craft items and pull out a pile big enough to excite the crafty masses, but small enough to transport to Williamsburg. And I’ve got to make a sweet treat or two to feed my crafters. I’m thinking lemon squares might be a bright and cheery addition to a wintery weekend.

I promise to take lots of pictures, like the one at the top of this post. That’s a sweet something that my friend David made last year. I couldn’t agree with the sentiment more. Valentine’s Day is definitely not for clones, and hosting your own Crafternoon guarantees your day will be a totally unique celebration.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for inspiration, why not head to your local library and ask a librarian to pull a few cool craft books from the stacks? Last night I had the good fortune to attend the finale party for Design by the Book, a collaboration between Design Sponge and The New York Public Library. The concept of Design by the Book is this:

Step One: Bring a group of designers to the New York Public Library to have them meet with a librarian and discuss their areas of interest.

Step Two: Send the librarian off to do some research.

Step Three: Have the designers return to the library to review the books that were pulled for them.

Step Four: Send the designers off to embark on a new project using something they found in the library as their inspiration.

The results are fantastic. The collaboration was documented on video and the episodes can be seen by clicking the link above or heading to the NYPL youtube channel. Who knew the library had a youtube channel? My talented friend Rebecca Kutys of Moontree Letterpress was one of designers involved with the project, as well as the person who came up with the idea in the first place. She and the other designers came up with such incredible projects. It makes me want to go spend this whole weekend in the library, but that will have to wait. I’ve got a lot of love notes to craft.