Valentine's Day Keeping Up With The Jones(es)

Show your love with homemade baked goods!

I wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day but then again, I wish all your days to be happy. 

Today is not special to me, by any means.  I don't buy into the commercialized hype of this holiday.  I think that your love and adoration should be celebrated every day of the year, not just on this day. If you cherish your love everyday then you don't need society to designate a day to shower your significant other with love, gifts and attention!

Musical Valentines By ZombieSmile
http://zombiesmile.deviantart.com/

I believe that when guys over the top to create the perfect Valentine's Day that it's not really about love.  I think that there is usually some other motivating factor behind the gesture, most likely guilt.  They don't do it because they feel especially romantic today or because it's going to be fun for them mostly they buy the gifts, plan the date, get the flowers because society tells them they have to or their woman will be outraged.  I hate being pressured into doing anything, how about you?

Photos... Some random favorites

I have have been going through photos on all my various hard drives, organizing them and backing them up to Google+ Photos lately.  This is a time consuming process but the fun part is looking at pictures you may have forgotten about.  Here are a few of my favorite photos that I have taken over the years...

Paper Roses - Technique #1

Creating Paper Roses - Technique #1

(Using Patterned Petals and securing with Elmer's Glue)

I have been looking into all the various ways to create flowers, specifically roses,out of paper.
There are so many ways that it's overwhelming! So I am posting a few different sets of instructions with different techniques, tools and results.

Step 1: Gather Supplies and Tools
Step 2: Draw Various Parts on Paper
Step 3: Cut Petals and Leaves for your Rose
Step 4: Fold and Burnish Outer Petals
Step 5: Glue Outer Petals Together.
Step 6: Proceed to Inner Petals
Step 7: Glue Inner Petals to Outer Petal Base
Step 8: Add Leaves
Step 9: Arrange Rose, or Roses as Desired

















The above technique for creating paper roses was adapted from an Instructable and all photo credit goes to the Instructable (Unless otherwise notated in photo caption):
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Paper-Roses/?ALLSTEPS





Supplies and tools for this craft are very minimal.
Paper
Scissors
Glue

Pen, pencil or marker

Clamps (if available)

Paper can be construction paper, copy paper, old book pages, gift backs, gift wrap, scrapbook pages, newspaper,English: This is a paper bag from Victory Supermarkets (Photo credit: Wikipedia) brown paper bags…. Etc. Tissue paper is not recommended.












After some practice you can skip outlining the pieces and just cut them out.


Shown are some designs you can use to begin with. As you can see, each individual shape is quite simple. Draw if necessary by following the picture shown. Try to maintain size relationships.






To make one rose you should have cut out a few leaves (2 or 3) and 7 petals (3 outer pedals and 4 inner petals)













The three outer petals are glued together to make the base of the rose.












Here, three or four concentric circles are wound or wrapped into cone shapes. You should have 3 or 4 different sizes of circles.




Having glued three or four cones together, we can now glue them to the base.




I add two or three leaves to the bottom of the rose. The leaves are cut out and the edges are serrated by making cuts along the edges of the leaf.