Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a holiday that lies somewhere between New Year's Day and April Fool's Day. According to statistics, it is second in flower-giving to Mother's Day. Giving a greeting card is frequently sufficient to celebrate this holiday, especially if you have multiple recipients to send something to.

I have been told that greeting card verse is the most profitable form of poetry. It is almost funny looking around in stores and seeing things that are similar to your work, maybe these are messages to keep on trying, eventually, you will hit the big time, someday, you will get just the right verse. Greeting cards are supposed to be fun for both the giver and the recipient, right?

So, you are going to make a greeting card for someone. Like eating peanuts, it is hard to stop at just one. Here is a tip: start off using recycled materials. Nothing helps creativity more than knowing that the materials you are writing on are going to be going into the garbage, if you don't rescue them. There is little or no guilt feeling involved in using these materials, it saves money, and your best efforts are saved for the new or unused papers. Besides, you will have enough greeting cards to go around this way. Send one to the mail delivery person, one to the pizza delivery person, one to the sanitation work team, one for the newspaper delivery dude or dudette, and send ones to your family and church people, too.

A word of caution about sending Valentine's Day cards to co-workers, make absolutely certain that they are April Fool's Day type cards, full of respectful humor. No mushy sentiments in these cards, unless, of course, you are already notably dating or actually engaged to a co-worker.

Sometimes, our creative efforts do not fit the guidelines. We all do marginal scribings, and when we use scrap paper, our negative efforts are easily torn up into itty-bitty scraps, after we cut out the hearts, the flowers, the puppies, the kitties, and the best words, with paper scissors. Find words like, "love", "like", "happy", "joy" in your writings, cut them out, and place them aside. Hopefully, we will feel even more inspired after doing this. This might even be a good time to pull out last year's or last decade's phone book, if we are really inspired to start tearing up paper. If that is the case, maybe we can do a great collage, or try paper-making.

Bring in the positive - roll in the good vibrations, celebrate Valentine's Day, as if you didn't have enough confetti during New Year's Eve festivities. This can be a private party for a couple, or a mini-party for one. Tiny gift wrapped bags of confetti, complete with ribbon scraps or metallic bits of confetti add cheer to a Valentine's Day mailing to someone who might rip the envelope.

Paper-making, ah, now there is a fantasy. The old fashioned Valentine's Day greeting cards, made from recycled rags and lumber mill ends, hammered down, and then made into fresh paper. This, from the sounds of it, was pretty much recycling already. So, nothing is really new.

Guess that it is time to dig into your shoebox or index box of saved ideas, or look into that intangible file cabinet for those repressed feelings of love, for some good ideas; now that we are completely drained of everything other than "positive mental attitude".

Not everyone has good feelings about Valentine's Day. Remembering that feelings can be nurtured and cultivated may be one way to force your creativity to be positive. The force is with you, you can write at least three words about Valentine's Day, as in, "I Love You".

Not everyone is expecting Valentine's Day to be the most wonderful or the most lonely time, ever. Some people dread Valentine's Day, some people feel emptiness about Valentine's Day, some people say "Bah-Humbug! Valentine's Day!", some people feel sensual not sentimental; not everyone fits into the cookie-cutter categories so neatly ascribed to people who celebrate Valentine's Day. Worry about the writer's guidelines, not about your grandmother's best friend looking through your mail, and immediately submitting everything to Kansas City, headquarters of Hallmark Greetings. Send your grandmother a neat doily with a heart-shaped collage glued to it.

Back in the late 1990's, emailing everyone on your contact list Valentine's Day greetings was a relatively easy thing to do, and most people opened the greeting card. Back then, I kept up with my email, and replied within days to personal email. I created Valentine's Day greetings with my computer using MS Paint or Publisher, I even built a Valentine's Day website.

I myself might open up the Valentine's Day card sent to me via email by Memorial Day, as of late, that is, if I even receive it. Some of us always have overflowing email bins now, either in our personal life or in our business life - if not both! E-mail bins can distract a person from the creative process. So, you may want to archive everything in your email or just check your first page until you have received results.

It is really odd, however, it is true, that writers "never write". When every effort needs to be a professional effort, responding to acquaintances can wait for your egreeting card to be published.

Besides, showing off your other talent of collage-making to your family and friends is a way of getting away from writing, reducing your trash, and gussying up your worst writing failures, so that they become successful.

You can use your magazines to make your special messages for your special people this year, and contact everyone. All you need are a few pieces of card stock (available at the office supply store for .10 - .20 per sheet), some well-read magazines, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick. You can even cut out the letters for the message or the words for the message.

Cutting the shapes into hearts is pretty easy, be yourself, nobody can tell you that you are cutting out the heart wrong. You know in your heart what looks best, if you try - your greeting cards will surprise, amaze, and confound your recipients.

Your personal touch will help you and your people in your stream, even if you are not in the mainstream. Maybe you should also collect doilies, gift-wrap pieces, and ribbons to decorate your cards, prior to sending them to the big greeting card manufacturer's office.

If you are in the mainstream, you will have extra greeting cards to send to greeting card companies in six months, which will help you have pin money for next year's Valentine's Day, if you are in need of money.

Choosing out subjects that are important are also a priority. Here's an idea: pick out a magazine that you have read without bending out of shape, look for a page where each side is an unimportant ad, cut out a heart shape from the magazine, carefully apply the glue to the side of the magazine that you want to glue the blank paper to, you will then have a gift that is sentimental without being overly personalized.

These instructions are geared to those of us who have no recent experience with crafts, most of whom are multi-tasking. The sort of people who stare into the paper in the office shredder and wonder how to keep it from going to the landfill once in a while. Sure, you could take the paper out of the shredder and use it to mail someone a box of chocolates. That's a great idea!

Or, you could take a photo of the chocolates, and email a photo to your loved one. Or, you could take the cardboard from last year's box of chocolates, and turn it into this year's greeting card; run out to the scrap-booking store, and get something to help you make it look personal other than the doilies and dried flowers you might have stored in the box.

Remember when you were in kindergarten, and sent Valentine's Day cards to everyone you could think of? Maybe you don't need to send e-greetings to everyone you can think of now, however, at least capture a little bit of the fun spirit of the holiday again.