Vintage Valentines, My Valentines, & Some Heart Cookies

It's no secret that I love roses. You all know that. What you may not know is that before I fell in love with roses, I was in love with hearts. I even painted a heart stencil chair rail in the living room of my last two houses. Very early 90's country. Somewhere along the way I replaced hearts with roses as my favorite thing. Don't get me wrong. I still love hearts, but my decorating style sort of evolved and took on a new life with roses being the main attraction.

A couple years ago I came across some vintage valentines in a booth at Monticello and it was love at first sight. I had to have them. Since then I have collected many lovely vintage valentines and for most of the year they just sit in a box on a shelf in my craft room. I have decided that I either need to sell them or get them out and display them. Even if it is only for a short while. Here is a little vignette with some of my favorites. Better late than never, I always say.

Trust me, this is so much cuter in person. The lighting is bad today. Okay, I guess I really should blame it on my poor photography skills, but believe me, it's pretty darn cute. This sweet display is on a little antique dresser in a niche in my front hallway/entry. I got the idea to stand the valentines in old flower frogs from Joy. Thanks Joy!

Here are some of my other favorites valentines shown in a mosaic. You can click on them to enlarge.

Can you see a common theme? I tend to gravitate towards vintage valentines with lacey details, and of course, roses.

To me, Valentine's Day is about celebrating love and family. What a great holiday! Definitely one of my favorites. Speaking of favorites, this is one of my most favorite pictures of two of my dearest valentines.

My kids. I think they are about one and three in the picture. I just love the sweet little expressions on their faces. I sure miss them being that little. Now they are 13 and 15 and I don't even try to get them to pose together anymore. One of my goals for 2009 is to get some professional pictures taken of them. My Mom has been nagging me about it for years and I really think it's time considering that it has been about 10 years since we have had any taken. I'll let you know how that goes.

As far as gift giving for Valentine's Day goes, we don't normally do much. This year I'm just keeping it simple by giving my not so little sweeties some chocolates and itunes cards. But, since I was feeling guilty about not making any Valentine's this year, I decided to decorate a couple of little bags to put their goodies in. Here are the results of my efforts.

I was looking all over Target for some cute containers to put their gifts in and came up with these simple brown bags which I immediately brought home and foofed them up with some vintage valentine's images, rick rack, glitter, crepe paper, ribbon and buttons. I know I'm not going to win any awards with these guys, but not a bad effort for a last minute throw together sort of a thing. I even made a couple cute tags. Here are the close ups.

My daughter had been pestering me for a couple weeks to make some soft sugar cookies so I got out my Mom's Club cookbook and whipped together these cuties.

They are pretty yummy and are great to make for any holiday. I like them because they aren't too sweet.

Soft cut out cookies

3 c. flour

1 T. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

3/4 c. butter or margarine, softened

2 eggs

2 t. vanilla or 1 1/2 t. almond extract

Ready to spread frosting

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, baking powder, salt. Set aside. In large bowl beat milk, butter, eggs and vanilla until well blended. Add dry ingredients and mix well. On a floured surface lightly knead dough to form a smooth ball. Divide into thirds. On a well floured surface, roll out each ball and cut with cookie cutters of your choice. Place cookies 1" apart on greased cookie sheets. Bake 7-9 minutes until lightly browned around edges. Cool thoroughly and frost and decorate.

Enjoy!

Have a fabulous Valentine's day tomorrow! I'll be back with more vintage finds on my next post.