Valentine's Day :: What REALLY Happened

Valentine's Day facts:

• Saint Valentine's Day was established 496 A.D. by Pope Gelasius as a remembrance of the death and burial of several martyrs named Valentine.
• The Valentines honored on February 14th are: 
• Valentine of Rome (martyred about 269 A.D.)
• Valentine of Terni (martyred 197 A.D. during persecution under Emperor Aurelian.)
• A third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies on a date of February 14th.
• No romantic elements are present in the original Medieval biographies of these martyrs.
• In 1969, the feastday of Saint Valentine was removed from the Roman Catholic calendar. The reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14."

Valentine's Day fiction:

• St Valentine was persecuted and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II. Claudius attempted to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
• A modern embellishment, widely repeated despite having no historical basis whatsoever, relays that on the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he would have written the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved, as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed, or both. It was a note that read "From your Valentine.
• Valentine is portrayed as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail.

~

I am not trying to put a damper on anyone's Valentine's Day celebration.

Or to make somber something special or sacred.

In fact, I am making a "romantical" meal today for my beefcake and me.

I have made some goodies and attached some vintage Valentine greeting cards 
to them, and plan on delivering them later today.

I have hung a LOVE banner in my foyer.

I'm even wearing pink and red!

But, while reading the facts and fiction of Valentine's Day,

what I thought we should remember, is that there were, 
a REALLY long time ago, men named Valentine

who, because of their LOVE for their Savior, Christ Jesus,

were jailed and suffered, even unto death for Him.

And, if that's not LOVE, I don't know what is.

~

Facts and fiction were found on Wikipedia.

A Scottish Home Maker's Valentine's Day

Oh, my goodness!

What wonderfully sweet girls (and a few guys) you are!

Y'all just blessed my heart so much with all the well wishes for my wrist after I was attacked.

For those of you that missed the tale, click here to read about it.

I wanted to reply personally to each one of you, but can't type ever so much this week

so, I thank you here and now!

You inspire me more than you know.

THANK YOU!

I can wiggle my fingers now, but the insides of my wrist joint are still tender.

It's healing.

Your prayers and well wishes worked!

I sent out a plea to some blogger friends to guest post for me while I recovered.

(I can type capital letters, now---see?)

One who responded is my girlfriend, Doda, whom I have known for almost a year now.

We met through our blogs.

I make home in South Carolina, U.S.A.

She is a home maker in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland.

Here is her home.

I asked Doda what Scottish homemaking looks like.

She told me, "I'm just try to keep on top of the housework and fail, 

and in between am trying to finish decorating this place. 

Who am I ? 

I guess I'm a child of God, a children's poet, a doodler, crafter and a bit of a songwriter too. 

I write children's songs that we use in Sunday school. 

I also play worship music on a Sunday morning with my husband sometimes."

Other things she does are:

She shops the Charity Shops and finds lace and trim.

She makes her own marmalade.

She teaches crafting to her cute 4 year-old assistant.

She designs amazing things for her online Folksy Shop: Studio Gilead.

She revamps furniture.

And she grows gooseberries, and red and white currants in her garden.





She sews! 
(A clothes pin laundry bag and heart sachet.)





She made her daughter's Birthday gift.
A dolly bed (she made it out of chair backs! And she sewed the linens!
I LOVE LINENS!)





She also sewed the darling dolly and her clothes!










So, you can see, she is quite the homemaker!
Today, she is going to share one of her projects with us.
Which I'll affectionately call:


~


The Anti-Valentine's Day Bouquet

...take it away, Doda!


OK, you're gonna think I'm a real party pooper here, 
but I have to be honest with you, we don't do Valentine's Day in our house. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against telling your loved ones 
how special they are to you. 
I think every day is good for telling someone how precious they are 
and how much they mean to you.  
Life on this earth is short, we shouldn't waste time 
waiting for that one day a year to tell them! 
I nearly lost my husband last year to a heart attack, 
I was so glad that just a few short hours before I had told him I loved him. 
We should treasure every moment with our loved ones. 
Every second is a gift.


OK, despite not partaking in Valentines Day, 
I do have a sweet little craft for you that you can use as a gift, 
or as a quirky little decorative item in your home.

You will need: 

• a flower punch and a heart punch. I'm using my Tonic Studios punches again.  
• florists wire, I don't know what gauge I was using, some was thin for adding the leaves and the other for the stems was thicker. Sorry I am not more helpful there! 
• small buttons or jewels for the centre of the flowers. 
• pages that contain text (I used some vintage encyclopedia pages), and my assistant (age 4) used watercolour paint to make a couple of green pages and a few brown-tinged pages.
• Punch the green paper with the flower punches (these are the bottoms of the flower buds).
• Punch plain hearts (these are the petals)
• Punch hearts from the brown paper for the heart confetti and bitty banner.

You'll need 2 green flowers and 12 hearts per flower, and 2 hearts per leaf.

Attach a heart to each of the flower petals (as shown). Layer two completed flowers together and hot glue them onto the thicker wire. Using needlenose pliers, form a flat spiral at the top of the wire so the glue has something to stick to. Glue some lovely little mother of pearl buttons to the centre. You can then curl and adjust the petals on the flowers to give them a more realistic look - realistic? ...out of old printed paper? ...well, you know what I mean!



For the leaves, I used two green hearts and one piece of thinner wire folded in half and twisted together for just over the length of the heart. 

I sandwiched the wire between the two hearts and glued it. Use the remaining length of the wire to wind around the stem of the flower. 
Add as few or many leaves as you like. 

Now arrange your flowers in a little vase - or even better, in a vintage bottle. 

You could add a little sentiment tag if they are for a gift. 

I  punched a heart out of my tag, but you could always add a sweet message.

My bottle was from some Indian Tonic Water. 

I liked the simple shape.

To vary this idea, you could:

• Change the paper you use. Try using some pretty scrapbooking paper, or vintage maps. 
• For more bling some glittery jewels in the centre would be lovely. 
• If you have a small plant pot, you could fill it with oasis, cover the top with moss and arrange the flowers in a little pot. 
• If you make a looser wire spiral with the thicker wire and add it to the arrangement it could serve as a pretty note holder. 

I wonder if this will inspire you to come up with your own version?

I like this little snippet from the Bible that talks about what Love is... 

Love is patient, 
Love is kind, and is not jealous; 
Love does not brag and is not arrogant, 
does not act unbecomingly; 
it does not seek its own, 
is not provoked, 
does not take into account a wrong suffered,  
does not rejoice in unrighteousness, 
but rejoices with the truth;  
bears all things, 
believes all things, 
hopes all things, 
endures all things.  

1Corinthians 13:4-7 

My friend Leo suggests replacing the word love with our own name 

to see how we measure up.
I know I fall short !

So... I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day, 

and that yours is filled with love!

Love, Doda

~

Click on her banner and go say Hi to Doda! 

She probably has some tea and shortbread waiting for you!