Valentine's Box and Birds

When I was a kid, I loved Valentine's Day.  I was a a super-sappy kid, prone to crushes and I valued friendship very highly.  Valentine's Day was that day when the cute boy across the room might scrawl 'From Roger' on the back of the card that said 'Valentine, Have a Whale of a Day!'  There'd be a picture of a cartoon whale, and that would be diehard evidence that Roger loved me and me alone.  Yup.  I had the card to prove it. 

Needless to say, Roger's mother had sat with him at the kitchen table, while he selected the Valentine for each kid on the class list.  Of course, I would not allow myself to believe that he chose the whale valentine specifically for the slightly chubby girl in the fourth row.  That crap hurts.  There was one girl in my fifth grade class that received only a few valentines.  I hope, if you're the mother of a grade-schooler, you make every effort to be sure that your child is kind.  Valentine's Day can be so hard on kids - and as a current human being and former schoolteacher, I can attest to that.

I always loved art class.  And on Valentine's Day, we always made a pocket, or a mailbox, or some such receptacle for the little cards we would be receiving.  I loved the day we made them and put them up.  I remember one teacher (I think it was Mrs. Lucas, in third grade) who figured out how to strap a lathe post to each little desk to hold up the box, just like a real street-side mailbox.  I cried when third grade was over and Mrs. Lucas would never be my teacher again.

This project was inspired by those old school Valentine boxes.  I found a small, red mailbox waiting for me at my local thrift store.  I played a while with my scissors, cutting out felt pieces, pom-poms, and lengths of cord until I had fairly covered the thing with pretties.  Here it is:

I also found a couple of after-Christmas birds in the clearance section - and they sure look like Valentine's Day to me, with their red-heart breasts.  Those stocking caps don't fool me!

Here's the reverse of the mailbox:

And when I post a love note, of course I'll raise the flag:

Here's all of them together, as the starting point for my Valentine's Day mantel:

  

Have you put out a few Valentine's Day pretties?

Love,

Sass