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Valentine's Day Cards

Often dubbed the Hallmark holiday, Valentine's day is a day for expressing your love in your relationship. It is not known how Valentine's Day card originated, but the first known card was sent in 1415 A.D by the Duke of Orleans. Valentine's Day cards gained in popularity during the 1800's and today are near mandatory as a declaration of your love for your partner on Valentine's Day. Traditional Valentine's Day cards are generally purchased from greeting card stores such as Hallmark, but there are many other forms of Valentine's Day cards including e-cards, love letters, or even postcards.

Ideas for sending Valentine's Day Cards

• Buy a box of cute children's Valentine's from a local store and fill each card with romantic love notes.
• Mail your Valentine a card through the mail, getting it stamped in a Loveland (Ohio!) on the way.
• Send a romantic Valentine ecard each hour on Valentine's Day. You can pick a variety of ecards from funny and endearing to romantic and sexy.
• Buy several Valentine's Day cards ahead of time and send them each day for a week leading up to Valentine's Day.
• Create a custom Valentine's Day card on a photo website, such as Shutterfly, filled with your favorite photos of the two of you.
• Buy an oversized Valentine's Day card and fill the entire card with words of love for your sweetie.
• Create your own hand-made Valentine's Day card either on your computer or even a large, oversized one with a piece of poster board.
• Create a bunch of simple heart-shaped cards and fill them with words of love.
• Send enough romantic Valentine's Day postcards to fill their entire mailbox.

Valentine's Day Card Facts

• Valentine's Day is the second largest card sending holiday each year with over 1 billion cards sent. The holiday is second only to Christmas.
• The actual act of sending commercial Valentine's Day cards began in the 1880's.
• During Victorian times, it was considered bad luck to sign and send a Valentine's Day card.
• Hallmark has over 1300 different types of Valentine's Day cards.
• Esther Howland, the first publisher of Valentine's Day cards in America, created elaborate lace cards that were sold to the wealthy for anywhere between to .
• The Italian city of Verona, when William Shakespeare famed Romeo and Juliet took place, received over 1,000 Valentine's Day cards addressed to Juliet every year.
• The Duke of Orleans sent the world's oldest known Valentine. It was sent in 1415 A.D. to his French wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. The Valentine is now displayed in a museum in England.
• During the 1800's, racy Valentine's gained in popularity and several countries banned them. During this time, Chicago's post office system rejected more than 25,000 Valentine's Day cards because they were too obscene to send via US Postal mail.