Help Me Choose my Valentine Cards!

Above: My offerings from 2006

Even though I’ve had a boyfriend for the last three years of my life (and a very wonderful one he is, at that ^_^), I still see Valentine’s Day as I have always seen it – as a day to honor my close friends. It started in high school, when it was popular for girls to give candy to their friends on holidays. On V-day in particular, your popularity was judged by the number of candy-grams you received (how many friends you had), and whether or not you got roses from male admirers. As someone who was desperately unpopular, it did sting a little to get – well, almost nothing, but right from the beginning I was determined to have it my own way. Sometime during sophomore year I decided to make V-day a celebration of my friends, since most of us were single, anyway. I spent a weekend baking cupcakes and painstakingly cutting, pasting, and carefully lettering handmade cards with each person’s name. I made one for each girl friend, wrapped the packages in red cellophane, and went in on V-day to hand them out (I also got in trouble for crafting instead of studying, but that’s another story). The girls thought the cards were pretty and I remember feeling really satisfied when several of them pasted them up inside their locker doors.

And so, a tradition was born. Every year since then, and particularly in college, I’ve tried to do something small (and usually handmade) for my friends. My feelings about V-day haven’t changed much since I started dating – I know what it’s like to avoid public areas because you can’t stand all the couples, and it sucks! I’m grateful that D is relatively low-key. We prefer to have a smaller, stay-at-home kind of celebration and move on with the rest of our day. V-Day is always a more muted celebration for us; we like to wait until our dating anniversary (at the end of Feb) to do something elaborate ^_^.

This year, for cards, I’ve decided to do little wallet-sized notes using my own photographs. And I’ve decided that I need some help choosing which images to use – and what better help than my readers? Thus, I’ve decided to hold a giveaway contest.  Here are the rules:

1) Comment to vote on your top choices from the three sets of images below by Friday, 2/8/08 at 11:59 PM. As indicated below, I’ve asked you to choose a certain number of images from each group [I will end up using all three sets]. I’d love it if you kept an eye to what would make a good set, and not simply as to which are the best individual images.

2) If I get 10 or more responses, I will randomly choose one winner to receive a 3-4 piece mini-note set using the group of photos of his/her choice and a small gift item (either a bento accessory from Daiso or a handmade heart ornament). The results of the contest will be posted on Saturday, and, if the winner contacts me via email on time, I will try to have everything shipped to him/her in time for the 14th.

Sound fair? Here are the sets…

“Lovebirds” (choose 2 images):

1.

2.

3.

“Red Heart” (choose 4 images):

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

“White Heart” (choose 2 images):

1.

2.

3.

- s.