Made with Love

I know Valentine's Day is a consumer-driven hyped up holiday that ends up making some people feel lousy, but I have to admit I always end up getting swept up in the love. A few years ago Sage started a tradition of making all his Valentines for school friends (see my previous post) and now McKenna is following in his footsteps.

She drew 6 different Valentine-themed pictures and I printed them out on card stock and she embellished them with hearts and suckers. One the back of each one was this printed this message:

I tried to get her to write Happy Valentine's Day but she insisted on "I LOVE YOU," which seems like a rather bold statement to hand out to people willy-nilly, but she didn't care.

While we perused the Valentine aisle at the grocery store she oohed and ahhed over all the stuffed bears and monkeys and whatnot decked in red and white and holding hearts. I couldn't bring myself to buy her one though.While she saw a goofy, fluffy, Valentine stuffed animal, I saw a cheap, Made in China sweatshop symbol of ridiculous American consumption. And besides, her bedroom is beginning to become one big symbol of ridiculous American consumption and I don't want another stuffed animal to have to pick up off the floor, so I made her a pillow instead:

It's soft and furry and has an even furrier M stitched on the front. I love the feel of that fabric but holey moley my studio now looks like I murdered a Muppet.

For Sage, I took this too-big Super Mario shirt I found at a thrift store,

and turned it into this:

It's not a pillow, but a "pipe":

It's super cozy like a big long muff. He was a tad perplexed at first but I showed him how he could put his Super Mario Bros. figurines through it and send them to different levels just like in the video game, or he could use it as a muff to keep his hands warm, or as a single leg warmer, or an elephant trunk warmer... the possibilities are endless!

I didn't make anything for Erik this year, but I did get him an IUD, well I got me an IUD, so we don't make any more babies. I have enough things to make and people to love in my life right now, I don't need any more.