Nothing says “I love you” like produce

Valentine’s Day is an annual opportunity for color and creativity in the midst of gray and frigid winter.

I was happy with how well my 2025 Christmas and winter-themed greeting cards printed and sold, so I decided (rather last-minutely) to make valentines.

I’ve already started planning our summer garden, berry patches, and fruit orchard (more on that in a future blog), so I found myself looking at vintage seed packets for valentine inspiration.

Our good friends, Kim and John, started their courtship by leaving fresh produce on each other’s cars. They are now approaching 19 years of marriage so don’t tell me vegetables aren’t romantic!

The BEETS valentine came together rather easily, perhaps because I find beets to be very “person-able.”

The PEAS were harder. I tried making vines into little arms and legs but it just didn’t look right. So they ended up looking like they are in sleeping bags on a weekend camping trip.

At this point I gave up trying to make leaves and roots into arms and legs. So these lettuce heads got appendages that aren’t exactly natural. Come to think of it, I suppose lipstick and neckties aren’t natural to produce either.

The original of this valentine read “LETTUCE grow old together” and depicted the lettuces holding hands. But since I wanted these valentines to be for friends as well as romantic interests, I changed the text to “be friends” and dropped the scandalous hand-holding.

By this point I wanted something other than two nearly identical vegetables gazing into each other’s eyes. Hence this cheeky tomato flirting with the viewer.

Witt Printing came through, as usual, with the great quality printing in a short period of time. I got 200 valentines (50 of each) printed last week. I sold quite a few and still have some left for hopefully getting on the ball sooner in 2027.

The backs have lines to write who the valentine is for and who it is from. They each come with a kraft envelope for mailing or giving in person.

For those with kids, Valentine’s Day season usually includes the making of a valentine box for school parties. Our homeschool co-op planned something similar.

Those of you who know me well probably aren’t surprised that I found the lure of making something with cardboard irresistible. Don’t worry, I still let my son help here and there.

He loves typewriters (he has 3 real ones) and asked for a typewriter valentine box. He is a journalist and started his own bi-monthly newspaper, Attic News, that he makes in his study (large attic closet).

The “keys” got a little wrinkled (we glued letters onto buttons then mod-podged them) but overall I think it’s recognizable as a typewriter.

His favorite typewriter is a Smith-Corona Classic 12 so he added the stickers and papers.

All in all, it’s been a pretty fun two weeks. I’m already planning FRUIT valentines for next year. :)