As many years as I’ve been reading romances I’ve never taken the time to look up the history of Valentine’s Day. So, this year I did some reading online and found it fascinating but one reference in particular caught my eye because I suddenly realized I might’ve stumbled across the origin of “scrapbooks” in a rather unexpected place. Check out this quote and see if you catch what I did: Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are … Read entire article »