Can Anybody Find Me...Somebody to Love

St. Valentine Stained Glass Window - Unknown Artist

Valentine's Day is upon us once more. Also Lupercalia, but we will forgo that for the moment as this is a family show. 

I like the thought of Valentines Day - how nice to have a day where you show a little affection, or even a little more affection, to a fellow traveller of this road we call life. It doesn't have to be romantic intent, either, although I know people get a little caught up in that,  and it doesn't have to be a pocket-draining exercise - I think we all know the debbie-downers who whine and snivel about it being a "card holiday designed to line the pockets of <fill in the enterprising company name>" and toss around meaningless little phrases like "I show you I love you EVERY day" - suck it up, buttercup, and go get the darn flowers and candy already, honest to Benji, what is wrong with you? Cough. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes,  a little good will (and potentially some chocolate) can make someone's day. Therefore, today I send to you a little Valentine - literally, a little valentine, as we are miniaturists.

Quarter Inch Scale Scene in a Heart Box - Kimi

First, what would the day be without a heart shaped box of candy? There are several ways to go about a heart shaped box. One way is to find an on-line printie - About.com has a few here (modern) and here (Victorian cherubs). This is a good place to start, as Lesley Shepherd has instructions that are pretty much transferable to any design you want, such as what this individual did for anatomically correct heart shaped box. Anyway you say it, say it with love. 

Literal Heart Shaped box

If you don't want to do a printie, look around for stickers. Right now they are in abundance at stores, in all sorts of lovely styles. Just apply the sticker to a cardstock, and go from there. For a less fussy box strip, look for quilling paper, which comes in a variety of colours, and can be used for other projects as well. 

Myself, I went roses and cherubs, as I am all about the sappy love. I am part of a mailing group from a printie retailer by the name of Anne Vanture. She has marvelous items for sale, but if you join her Paper Minis Club, you get a newsletter and a link to freebee printies. This was one of the freebees.

Anne Vanture Printie - Paper Minis Club

The first step of course is to carefully cut the printie out. To keep things simple, I cut as I need a piece, in order to keep small paper-based prison breaks from happening. One tip I can give you for cutting out curved objects is to move the paper as you close down the scissors, as opposed to moving the scissors around the paper. There is just much better control for fine cutting using this method.

Pretty Paper Heart and Strip

The top of the box and strip cut out. The next step was to bend the strip in the middle. Why, you say? Well, I am glad you asked. The strip has to go around several curves, and at least one in the middle at the top of the heart. If you make your bend first, you aren't madly fiddling with it as you glue, and you can pre-curve your paper as well, so you are not fighting with the natural tendency of the strip to stay straight. 

Bent Strip

Gluing the Strip to the Top of the Heart

Yay, I ignored my own advice. I also remembered why I was supposed to do the top bend and not the heart point first, it became very fussy. I did better on the bottom portion of the box.  The lesson here, of course, is do as I say, not as I do.

Top of The Box

Even though I went against my own advice, it didn't turn out badly. It was just a little fussy. 

Heart In Hand

The next step was to line the top with the insert, which hides all the nasty little jagged parts that we don't want to see. 

Top and Bottom of Box

The bottom was a repeat of the top. Here is the finished piece. The good news is...I found my Gold Paint Pen! The bad news probably is the same as the good news. The box was black, but I wanted shiny...mmmm...shiny...

Poly Clay

I wanted to make chocolates for my box. There were a few ways to tackle this, I went with some "chocolate" coloured sculpey. In retrospect, it would have been better to go with a dark brown, light brown, and white (just so we are clear, white chocolate is not, in fact chocolate) just to get some interest. One could have also wrapped small beads as well. My favourite wrapping is from Hershey's kisses (tm) but you have to get them during a "season", or you will be stuck with boring colours. Right now they are all red, pink and silver papers. 

Blatant Product Placement in hopes of  Free Chocolate from Hersheys

I started out just making little chocolate balls. This didn't work out as I had hoped, they were kind of boring. I would recommend getting your own box of chocolates and using that as inspiration, and sustenance should you get really into it*.

* (not responsible for over-enthusiastic research).

Boring Little Balls Of Chocolate

Boring Little Balls Of Chocolate in Glue

Boring Little ...well, you get the idea

I just wasn't impressed with my chocolate skills here. I ripped up all the glued balls, and started again.  I went back to my Hershey Kiss Stash (as I am always willing to take a hit for the team) , and started wrapping some of the chocolates, just to give them a bit more interest. 

Chocolates, wrapped, and some accented with gold

That is a little better. I am still not extremely happy with my arrangement, but it is the thought that counts, right? 

Box of Chocolate

That is a little cuter when you can only see a few of the candies peeping out at you. I also ditched the black lining in favour of red tissue paper.  If you get a lot of bagged gifts like I do, make sure you save the tissue paper, as not only is it re-usable, but also you won't have to buy brand new paper for an inch worth of material.

Well, I was also going to make you lovely people roses as well today, but a critical piece of equipment has been misplaced, that being my heart punch. So, I will share with you the pattern, so at least you can get started while I search the universe - or at least that part of the universe closest to me - for that silly tool. 

About.com Roses

 When they speak of Airmail Weight paper...try perhaps tracing paper, or other artist's fare. I went out looking for this weight of paper and it doesn't seem to exist. One used to be able to buy it as envelopes from post offices, etc., but I have never seen this paper as anything *other* than an envelope. I have tried the following:

 It isn't too pricey, and one can always find a use for tracing paper, and it does fit the "translucent" requirement. 

Below is a candy tutorial - probably should have looked for something like this before I went gonzo on my own chocolates. It also has a flower tutorial.

That is all for this week. I hope you have a fabulous Valentines, no matter what your facebook status is, and until next time, my treasured readers...