I hope schools still do this: provide a stressful holiday, one introducing the vagaries of popularity. Even more so I hope that kids still feel the excitement as I did as I lifted the pasteboard lid off my box of oh-so-thin cards with matching envelopes.

My grade school, Antioch Elementary, indulged us this way: we had a classroom party, lots of cup cakes with pink frosting (homemade! no CostCo, our moms baked, often with a little help from Betty Crocker and Jack Daniel’s), but the highlight was popping off the lids of our Valentine Boxes.

The Valentine boxes were made early in the preceding week, then set on the shelf by the window, where we hoped our secret crushes would find satisfaction. The making of the box was a very personal act. Its shape, whether you opted for a shoe box or an oatmeal box, various grades of construction paper, stickers, stuff you’d saved up… it all got glued on. With a WIDE slot on top so no card would be refused.

We even had contests for best box. I won. I recall one red telephone shaped box and one, and here I’ve no idea why, but one year it was a black (posterboard) pot-bellied stove.

The inexpensive cards — a box of 36 ran about $1.65– were printed single-sided on card stock, the envelops really crappy. The better sets included stickers and printed envelops. Also, a good set had a Teacher card.

The idea was to ration the good cards, give those to your real friends, then dole out the cruddy ones to the kid that always smelt of playground asphalt and pee. Sometimes, even using last years cards. Or a Ziggy.

The card designs changed even in my few years of buying them. Shinier, more branding like Barbie, GI Joe, and Snoopy replacing the no-name ones.

Hey, I’m rambling– screw this. Let me know your ideas for other designs.

Check back, I’m planning on doing a few more designs and a bonus Teacher Card!

Answers to the two types of emails I’ve received: first, where are the hi-res versions (see below) and, two, how do I make these (sketch, software, etc)(see belower)

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Hi-res versions

• Monsterism Card, Design #1: “I’d be off my noodle… ” Adobe PDF (162 KB)
• Pirate Bears, Design #2: “…but you must die ” JPEG (163 KB)
• Flying Spaghetti Monster Teacher’s Valentine Card: “you evolved to be my valentine ” Adobe PDF (247 KB)

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See Also

• the 2007 Collection: Anti-Valentine’s Day Cards for the grumps of your life
• Flying Spaghetti Monster Coloring and Activity Book
• Flying Spaghetti Monster Appears in Coffee Froth (plus Manga/Anime version of Him/Her?) photos of FSM as he appeared to me, in my coffee. No, really. How rude, it did happen, you can’t fake photos, heretic.
• Bible Stickers: Evolution v. Intelligent Design v. Enchilada Casserole: a proposal for requiring warning stickers in publicly held bibles.

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More Resources

• venganza.org
• Yummmy Cupcakes, Burbank

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About the Sketches

While a few of these were done from scratch on the computer in Painter (a killer program) most of these pieces began as quick pencil sketches (sometimes in a pocket notebook, sometimes on Ajisen place mat — really nice paper, and great NOODLES!). Sketches get scanned then (usually) traced in Illustrator. Sketching takes two to fifteen minutes, Illustrator takes 1 to 8 hours.

The teddy bears/pirate/shark card was traced in Photoshop — mainly due to my dread of rendering believable water with Illustrator paths.

I’ve favored Illustrator for FSM-work mainly because his luscious noodles are just faster to do with Bezier curves than by hand sketching. Though I did one to good effect using Painter’s pens, I just don’t possess the coordination required on my Wacom tablet to use this exclusively.

Shown below, the original sketch for first Valentine’s Day Card (“I’d be off my Noodle if you’d be mine”). Here’s the original sketch for “I Love You… But You Must Die” card

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Thursday, February 3rd, 2005 Illustration Cards, Flying Spaghetti Monster, religion, Valentine's Day