This valentine started with an idea from Virginia Fitzgerald, who has drawn these beautifully patterned hands. It reminded me how so often I've traced my children's hands in journals, cut them out, colored them in, traced them on aprons for grandmothers and aunts, traced them on plates. It's such a tangible record of a moment in time when their hands are small. But then Virginia's decorated hands seem like an ode to the art of mehndi, or henna tattoos as practiced by Indian and Pakistani women on their wedding days.