Valentine's Day: It's All About the Paper

I love Valentine's Day -- none of the pressures of Christmas, but all of the paper! Look at this lovely box of old letters:




Our friend CJ Zondervan was kind enough to teach me how to make these pattern tissue blooms:



, which we combined with the envelopes to make this non-traditional Valentine wreath:




I bought all these yummy papers from my friend and paper dealer extraordinaire Patty Suttle:*

We layered the maps of London and the sheets of poetry to create some heart collages that are fun for the holiday, but can easily be displayed all year long. Other Wheaton projects included these game board hearts* and

cash-register-wheel photo holders.

We were pleased with the response this week's crop of handmades, and the Wheaton show turned out to be just fine. Joe and I had been a little concerned that the switch to Saturday would cut down on the crowd, but we were pleasantly surprised. Early buy was very busy, mostly for smalls, but furniture held its own throughout the rest of the show. We want to thank all of our regulars who came out -- we couldn't do without you!

Although I whined most of last week about not getting my day off and having to be ready to go a day early, by the weekend, we were reaping the benefits -- two days off in a row! That meant extra time to spend with our excellent hosts, the Boyds, and friends Kerry and David Vernon; we actually went to a concert and then got to sleep in the next day. Friday night, we had a fabulous dinner with a group of dealers at a Thai restaurant in Wheaton, recommended by our friend Diane Passi. And check this out -- Diane's daughter, Olivia, made this tremendous cat house for my favorite feline, Domino. She did a super job constructing and decorating it:

So we were feeling pretty sassy by Sunday! Tomorrow, it's back to bookkeeping, then we'll get busy finishing our load for SoBo Style in Columbus, Ohio. We'll head east on Saturday. xo


*Patty is going to start selling collage packets -- stay tuned for information. And I wanted to say thanks to our Grayslake customer Kelly for reminding me about the fun of working with game boards!