One thing I love is sitting at a good writing table where the morning light comes streaming in, warming me as I put pen to paper and let my thoughts and feelings become beautiful words on the page.

What’s one thing you love? Email us a photo and caption of what you love to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish your photo you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

Photo copyright Love is the Key® 2012

Sometimes you get help from a source you never expected! Today, we would like to introduce the newest addition to the Love is the Key® team, our new photo intern Mae. Though just recently becoming an active member of the team, Mae has been a family member for many years after we rescued her as a kitten in a back alley shortly after her birth. It’s tough to believe, but this beauty was originally homeless. Now, she is a healthy and happy cat with a wonderful personality.

As you can see from these pictures, Mae is a naturally curious and engaging cat who enjoys always being a part of our family. While setting up for one of our product photo shoots, she took a particular liking to the way the lights glowed on the sides of our light box. Thankfully she doesn’t have any claws or we would have been in the market for some new equipment!

The photo shoot Mae helped us with ended up being the photographs for our newest diamond pendant keys, which some of you got for Valentine’s Day! We hope that you think they are as beautiful and full of love as we do! We’ve already let Mae know that she’s going to be needed again soon as we are about to have another photo shoot where we’ll be bringing you some beautiful new jewelry pieces from Love is the Key®! So keep checking back here, or like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest news, products, and love from Love is the Key®!

Tell us what you think about the work our photo intern’s doing in the comments below!

Is there a special animal companion that you love as part of your family? Email us a photograph and story about your best friend to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish it you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

All photos copyright Love is the Key® 2012

One thing I love is dancing to the music of life and love every day with someone you love.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Love is the Key®! We wish you and yours days and years filled with love, caring, and acceptance!

What’s one thing you love? Email us a photo and caption of what you love to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish your photo you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

Photo copyright Love is the Key® 2012

“Rose-cheeked Laura”
by Thomas Campion

Rose-cheeked Laura, come,
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty’s
Silent music, either other
Sweetly gracing.

Lovely forms do flow
From concent divinely framed;
Heav’n is music, and thy beauty’s
Birth is heavenly.

These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
Knows no discord,

But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renewed by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-
Selves eternal.

What’s one thing you love? Email us your own poem about love to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish it you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

Photo copyright Love is the Key® 2012

As we’re sure all of you are aware, Valentine’s Day is around the corner. All of us at Love is the Key® have been through a few Valentine’s Days ourselves, and since our business is love, we thought we’d share a bit of collective wisdom to help ensure that each and every one of you has a memorable and love-filled day on the 14th! We guarantee that following this advice will provide you and your loved one beautiful memories you will cherish forever.

• Cut the Stress: When Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday like it does this year, the stress can really be overwhelming. Add in that this year the holiday is a Tuesday, near the beginning of the week, and anyone balancing the demands of a job with a relationship can quickly break into a stress-sweat. What we know is that the one way to torpedo romance is to let yourself become overwhelmed by stress. Romance thrives in a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere where you and your loved one can focus on your relationship, not on that report that you have to finish the next morning. So how do you beat the stress? Well, if next week is going to be a killer at work, we recommend splitting up your Valentine’s Day celebrations. Instead of trying to force the huge romance on a Tuesday night after work, have a romantic but relaxed evening with a glass of wine in front of the fireplace and a loving conversation about your relationship. Then save the fireworks for the weekend, and on Friday or Saturday plan your big night out with dinner, dancing, and gifts.
• Something Old & Something New: Valentine’s Day is a day to focus on your relationship’s past, present, and future. Sometimes we focus on the romance and forget about the purpose: to focus on and strengthen your relationship. One way to do this is to incorporate something old and something new into your Valentine’s plans. Something old could be making the same dinner you had on your first Valentine’s Day together. Something new could be reading a poem you wrote for the occasion. Incorporating something from your relationship’s past allows you and your loved one to reflect on the time you have spent together building a beautiful relationship. Bringing in something new to the celebration allows you to think about the future and show that you are continuing to build you lives together each and every day. That sounds pretty romantic, right?!
• Something Traditional & Something Unique: This is similar to the last point, except that it refers to the traditions of Valentine’s Day rather than your personal relationship. Getting or doing something that is traditional to Valentine’s Day honors the holiday and the occasion as an important day of romance. But doing just a traditional Valentine’s Day date is boring! It’s important to do something unique that highlights the unique aspects of your loved one and your relationship. If you bring flowers or a piece of jewelry as a present, maybe also bring the latest CD by a favorite singer. The important thing is to honor the holiday and also to create a memory that is only shared by you and your loved one.
• Be Open: This is what we think relationships are really about – letting yourself open up fully and entirely to another person. Each day of a relationship involves learning something new about your partner, whether it’s how much salt they like in their soup or how they feel about their success at work. In the craziness that happens every day, sometimes it’s easy to forget that this is what we’re supposed to be doing in a relationship. We get caught up in our own worlds and suddenly we realize that the “we” of the relationship is becoming a “you and I”. Valentine’s Day is meant to help combat this. So this Valentine’s Day, don’t just do dinner and a movie and remain impersonal and distant, depending on other people and things to entertain you. Spend part of the evening opening up to one another. Tell your loved one something you’ve never revealed about yourself. Learn something new that your loved one has never told you. Open up, get closer, and let the love flow between you to an even greater degree!

Well, we hope that these Keys to Love are helpful when planning your Valentine’s Day! In the end, though, what we hope you take away from this is that what’s important is that whatever you do, you do it with love. And whoever you love, you show them your love with all your heart.

Now we’d love to hear your own tips for Valentine’s Day in the comments below! What do you do to make the evening romantic and memorable? What’s the best Valentine’s Day you’ve ever had? Tell us below!

Do you have a “Key to Love”? Write a short article and email it to us at loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com. If we publish it you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
by Christopher Marlowe

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

What’s one thing you love? Email us your own poem about love to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish it you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

Photo copyright Love is the Key® 2012

In our “News of Love” feature, we focus on one of the many positive news stories that tend to get overlooked in the overwhelming coverage of the negative. So let’s see how much LOVE is being shared out there!

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we find ourselves thinking a lot about love. Usually, this means thinking of our own relationships with family, friends, and loved ones. But Valentine’s gives us an opportunity to think about the history of love, too, and how it has been an integral force throughout the history of civilization.

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston is currently offering a prime way to view for yourself some of the origins of love in Western Civilization through the exhibit “Aphrodite and the Gods of Love”, on exhibition through February 20. Aphrodite, if you remember your Greek mythology, is the Greek godess of love and beauty. The exhibition includes 150 Greek and Roman works of art, including 13 pieces that are on loan from elsewhere and so hard to see outside of this exhibit.

These 150 works of art show the Gods’ role in loves many forms: as creator of attraction, protector of brides, champion of procreation, guardian of desire, and more. The exhibit probes all kinds of love, from the romantic to the passionate and even to the seductive. Walking through this collection, it is impossible to not be overwhelmed by how contemporary the Greeks’ and Romans’ understanding of love is, and thus how universal those emotions really are.

So if you are in Boston before February 20, we highly recommend that you find your way to the Museum of Fine Arts and view for yourself this truly spectacular and special exhibit on love and beauty. (Hm, this sounds like a great Valentine’s Day date to us!) If you are in another part of the country, don’t worry! The Museum of Fine Arts has been kind enough to provide a selection of the pieces viewable online so that everyone can see a piece of ancient love.

Have you seen News of Love in your neighborhood? Email us the story to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish it you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

Photo copyright © Museum of Fine Arts Boston 2011

“To My Dear and Loving Husband”
by Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, than surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.

What’s one thing you love? Email us your own poem about love to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish it you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

“How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways”
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints-I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

What’s one thing you love? Email us your own poem about love to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish it you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

Photo copyright Love is the Key® 2012

One thing I love is taking an afternoon off to wander through a beautifully manicured public garden and reconnect with nature and my own inner peace.

What’s one thing you love? Email us a photo and caption of what you love to loveisthekeyblog@gmail.com, and if we publish your photo you will receive 25% off your next order at the Love is the Key® Online Store!

Photo copyright Love is the Key® 2012