Having fun playing with a squishy sweet Valentine's message for my honey! I used a Molotow masking pen to create the lettering and then watercolored over them. I added a bit of shading using Faber-Castell PITT pens to the first and last words.

And of course, Ms. Moby had to get her nosy self in there too!

Tribute to a fun day Stillman & Birn Zeta Sketchbook Watercolor and ink

Valentine's Day has always been a minefield for dating couples or those who have just broken up or those who have just gotten together. Add that to the pressures of Madison Avenue to buy bigger, better, sparklier things and it becomes a hated holiday. And that pressure is also felt by those who are alone and would rather not be!

Chris and I don't ignore the holiday as we both feel it's nice to recognize each other, but nor do we get caught in the "Hallmark Trap" of trying to make it picture perfect with just the right card, gift and activities for the day.

As it turned out, this year's Day of Love came about as something a little more special than the usual with a surprise gift (for me, that I adore), a great movie (Kingman: The Secret Service), lunch with friends, discovery of a cool, new shop near the theater with some fun new finds for decorating our home!

Detail of journal page

They were giving out roses at the new store, so another surprise—two white roses. Not only have they opened, but Moby and her holy terror tactical team have left them alone! (UPDATE: I spoke to soon—we awoke this morning to find one of the roses visiting the floor.)

Lastly, we ended our outing at Ruby Tuesday's. We wanted to sit out on the patio because it was jam-packed inside and very, very noisy. After we were seated we heard others complaining about the 45-minute wait. Because we opted for the patio, which we had all to ourselves, we didn't wait at all!

That's when we remembered it was Valentine's Day. Oops. I assure you that had that little piece of info crossed either of our minds, we've gone home and rewarmed the leftover pizza.

Our waitress asked us how long we'd been together and of all the folks she'd served, we had been together the longest (22 years and counting).

I decided to put together a journal spread for the day and it became very busy, very quickly.

To help make the text flow…wait. Stop. Let me back up first.

The first thing I did was kind of a quick pencil layout where I wanted all the items. I then laid down a piece of the drywall patch* that I've seen used by others to help with the journaling.

I'm sad to say, it left a very nasty glue residue all over the page which would not be picked up by a kneaded eraser nor a plastic one. Grrrrrr!

Detail of the page

I decided to keep going, sans drywall patch, and just wing the journaling. To better help the text flow (which really had no flow), I decided to add the arrows in a different ink color.

I added the movie ticket, a logo from a bag from the new store and RT's logo to offset the art and journaling. It was a busy day and I kinda like that the page is busy as well.

After nearly completing the spread, I began to think of a few more things I wanted to capture and added them in yet another ink color.

A fabulous day all the way around!

I hope your Valentine's Day was a special treat as well.

*While the patch did not work out for me this time, I will try it again. If you want to give this a whirl, I STRONGLY suggest you adhere the patch to a piece of fabric (that you don't care about!) several times BEFORE you press it down to your page.