Lookee here…
It’s a heart-hefting Chewbacca, Bringer of the LOVE!

This polymer-shaped, Sharpie-enhanced tribute to the Wookie of your dreams is available as a magnet or a pin, and evokes the spirit of Valentine’s Day with handcrafted humour.

And much like love itself…
this wookie is flexible, but fragile.

By BicycleOcean (Naomi) of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Valentine’s Day on the horizon, and hearts are everywhere. Half the display windows of stores downtown look like a teenybopper’s bedroom… which brings us to quilts, doesn’t it? Hearts… Quilts… and this quick clever “Mosaic Hearts” quilt pattern, free at Moonlight Quilts.

It’s all little squares and straight lines, but the final effect can be quite subtle with the right choice of fabrics.

Beth Lancaster, the life-long quilter and seamstress who designs and creates the heirloom-quallity custom Moonlight Quilts, suggests the option of applique photographs in the centre of each heart motif, or in the corners of the quilt.

This is a good project for a beginning quilter, Beth says, and demonstrates the method of consturction to take any guesswork out of the project.

Heads up, all you lucky guys with serious tech-trending girls in your lives — Valentine’s Day is coming, and you know what that means!

You really need to start planning for a gift that will leave her breathless and affectionate enough to forgive you a year’s worth of leaving your socks on the floor and standing her up at Starbucks because your World of Warcraft game was just getting good…

Fortunately, my pal Pookie has exactly what you need — nothing less than the most romantic geek gift ever, a USB memory key in the form of a sparkling heart necklace. Lovely!

Oh, sure, it’s a snidgen on the pricey side (especially if you plan to throw in a fancy restaurant dinner and vintage vino to round out the evening), but… could you come up with anything more perfect? Practical… and oh, so very pretty!

Time to share some of the pretties that have been catching my eye… and where better to start than with the timeless heart?

Above, clockwise from upper right:

• 3500 pounds of sculptured stainless steel, “Hanging Heart” by Jeff Koons fetched $23.6 million at its Sotheby’s auction. [via Dailbe Beads]
• The cheery yellow Folk Art Heart Love Scripture Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ gallery-wrapped canvas, by Laura Brittain (whose birthday is this week, so her Etsy profile tells us — Happy birthday, Laura!)
• Tejae Floyde’s fun charms have stolen my heart — this trio is just a small sample of her wonderfully whimsical pieces, and I think you’ll be seeing a lot more of her work: “Heartfully crafted, Artfully yours”… (Forget everything you think you knew about polymer clay, by the way, and check out Tejae and others at the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy!)
• Single-use petal soaps in the shape of hearts come from the sister team of Twin Dream Creations. I love the sophisticated arid-green of “Green with Envy,” but the more traditional rosy-pink heart soaps are also available. Perfect for guests or bridal, the soaps can be scented with your choice of fragrance or essential oils.
• Finally, a coffee-lover’s dream of an accessory to enhance the java ritual — this pewter coffee scoop, decorated with an ornate heart design, is found at Modern Artisans.

My thanks to HeartaDay: It was her own fascinating version of the popular “daily painting” project started me off on a hunt for lovely hearts.

I was thinking Gifts for Newlyweds here, but can’t we all use a little love in the morning?

The pink heart-shaped frying pan — non-stick, thank heavens! — is from DotComGiftShop. How cute is that? But no eggs for me, thanks. Who can look at a yolk in the morning? I’ll go for tiny little heart-shaped pancakes, smothered in maple syrup.

And what do we use to mix up the breakfast o’ luv, but heart-shaped measuring spoons and measuring cups (both at Red Envelope). The cups are aluminum, but the spoons are food-safe pewter made in Rhode Island by traditional methods, which is rather a nice thought.

Each cup or spoon is engraved with a heart-warming measurement — a dash of humor, a pinch of kindness, a spoonful of fun, a cup of love, and so on — but don’t worry, the traditional measurements are written there too!

“Tea for one” might not be quite what we’re going for here, but I can’t resist this hand-painted nesting teapot and mug set (DotComGiftShop). The brushwork is so free and casual, and I particularly like the use of both pink and red in the hearts pattern. Not to mention that big fat round comfortable comforting shape. There’s a heart-patterned coffee mug to match, if coffee is more your newlyweds’ beverage style…

The search for little boxes continues…

Tonight, a fleeting heart-shaped hint on Etsy’s front page — I caught it by the merest of lucky accidents! — leads to an artist who’s new to me, Paula Manning-Lewis…

Voila!
Two lovely light-hearted boxes in acrylic paints on papier mache, as well as the stash-sized Red and Brown Heart Spiral trinket box in oil paints on wood. (I really like the way the lines of paint almost suggest a fantasy wood grain, counterpoint to the wood itself.)

PaulaM‘s work has a free and easy southwest feel to it, at least to me from my northern perspective — is it the flowing line, or the palette of warm clear sunrise/sunset colours?

About the artist:

I currently work mainly in watercolor, but I have worked with a variety of mediums. I like to paint a fairly large variety of subject matter but stick mainly to southwest landscapes, portraits and my newest fascination, abstract expressionism! Recently, my main theme has been peace.

PaulaM lives and creates in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she co-founded the Seventh Mountain Artists group.