Hello, Mitten friends, and welcome to 2009! We all had a relaxing, sugar-filled holiday season and are back on track for a kick-bum-crafty 2009.

It seemed like it took only minutes for the giant crafting stores to whip down the Christmas supplies and throw up the Valentine’s Day goodies, so it’s no surprise we received a cool invite this morning from the folks at Fred Flare. Thanks to Flickr, we found out about their “Fred Flare Snail Mail Valentines for Charity” project. Check out all the info below and make sure to join the Flickr group– looks like a lot of fun with a heart-warming twist!

Okay, so I had this weird idea?? How AMAZING would it be if we could get lots of people to handmake one-of-a-kind valentines, then donate the proceeds from the sales of these valentines to a good cause? Sounds like fun, right?

Pls allow me to outline how this is gonna work in three easy steps… Simple!

1) MAKE A VALENTINE
You can make it out of anything… Construction paper, collage, paint, crayon, a print of a photo you took, write a poem, make a mix tape, whatever ya feel like! Be sure to include a matching envelope.

2) SEND YOUR VALENTINE + ENVELOPE TO FF BEFORE JAN 15TH
Ya can just pop both in another envelope and send it regular mail to SNAIL MAIL VALENTINES c/o fredflare.com, 300F Kingsland Av, Brooklyn NY 11222. Hurry! Your valentine MUST be postmarked no later than Thurs, Jan 15th to participate. That’s only 10 days away. DON’T flake on me, peeps!

3) YOUR VALENTINE WILL DEBUT ON FF THE LAST WEEK OF JANUARY
All valentines will be sold online and in our new Brooklyn store for the super friendly price of ONLY $4 EACH and ALL the proceeds from the sales of these valentines will go directly to Elder Craftsmen, an NYC based organization that brings craft workshops to local senior citizens. Our last charity event raised $5K. Can we beat it? With your amazing creation in the mix, I know we can!

Please upload your Valentines to this group so we can see all the great ideas you come up with!