I grew up making paper Valentine's at the kitchen chopping block - cutting red, pink and white construction paper hearts after homework was done. One year, we made homemade play-dough-heart-shaped-necklaces, baked in the oven and strung on red yarn. My mom insisted we make a Valentine for each kid in the class, themes from my childhood: include everyone and if you want to receive then you need to give, do your part. You were either all in or you were out. I was in! I loved the promise of my decorated paper lunch bag or milk-carton-turned-mailbox filled with little notes and cards. These cards saved year after year under my bed, "You have too much yammy-yama!" my mom would chide. There were egg cartons carefully protecting small and broken treasures and shoe boxes stuffed with cards and notes, held closed with a ribbon or shoelace.

As a child, the weeks preceding Valentines Day promised a trip to the drug store for a new supply of white doilies and maybe, just maybe, a packet of stickers. Today, the advertising and selling of Valentine's Day seems ratcheted up a notch or three. The consumption factor, the obligation to give big and bold, and the exclusive focus on couples are such a long and winding journey to another land far from the kitchen's chopping block and creative space of my childhood memories.

Valentine's Day remains one of my favorite holidays - the array of today's fancy scissors and paper, punches, and adonrments make me weak-kneed with possibility.

During 2011 I celebrated Valentine's Day on the i love you, too blog with individual love notes posted near friends' homes or on businesses and corresponding blog posts declaring my love. The experience of finding the words, posting the sign, clicking "send" all transformative moments as I practiced loving outloud. I gained major "heart muscle", if you will, not unlike what would happen to my arms if I did push-ups every day for an entire month. My heart muscle grew bolder, stronger and telling people how and why I love them remains in my heart muscle memory.

2012's celebration of Valentine's Day on the i love you, too blog is a series of pop-up art displays around San Francisco - Love on the line. I love you, too fliers customized with phrases inspired by status updates and 'i love you because Fridays' from the i love you, too Facebook page hang with clothespins from a clothesline.

i love you NOW!

i love you and i am so very sorry

i love you with my whole <3

J- i love you

i love you because you wake up smiling

i love you because you let me

i love you - Lucky Me!

i love you night & day

i love you - i can't remember not

i think i love you

i love you (i really do)

i love you. are you listening?

I enjoy the nod to laundry, an every day mundane experience, and turning upside down the concept of 'airing your dirty laundry'. In the end, love and loves and loved is who who we are and what gives our soul its beautiful shape. I really enjoy seeing the repetition of the signs - I'm still enthralled with that font and the concept that you can pull a tab of love whenever you need it. The visual repetition along with the custom messages provoke a 'heart full and smiling' experience. I've learned there is something quite anonymous about posting the signs in a group and about more than one person or experience at a time- yay, more heart muscle building!

Before I sit down at the table and start cutting out hearts and layering the paper to make this year's cards, I had to put my love for you on the line. It seems the proper thing to do after loving you for all this time.

What will you do to show your love? I can't wait to see what your big heart does.

Valentine's Day: my love is on the line