Stack Of Colorful Valentine's Day Cards And Envelopes Coloring Page

The cards are stacked edge on here, which hands you a long run of narrow parallel strips down one side of the pile that rewards patient work with a fine tip. Propped at the top is a single card shown face on, framed by a scalloped border and carrying a large heart with a rose laid across it. A deep envelope leans against the front of the stack with two hearts on its flap. The outlines are heavier than on the simpler sheets in this section and the detail is pitched at older hands.

There is more than one way to handle a pile like this. Filling every card edge with the same shade turns the whole stack into one solid block, while rotating two or three closely related tones down the side keeps each card readable as a separate sheet of paper. The second approach takes longer and looks considerably better for it.

Sending these on the fourteenth of February was already a commercial business by the 1840s, when Esther Howland began assembling lace and ribbon valentines in Massachusetts and effectively founded the American greeting card trade.