A few years ago I had a minor burst of artistic creativity. This primarily concerned chemistry-theme puns of a mildly romantic nature. Having recently defended my PhD and with a glorious eight weeks of pure, unadulterated freedom in hand until I started my first job, I sat down and drew out some sketches that later turned into actual, real Valentine’s Day cards.

I posted them to reddit and had a pretty good response. Chemjobber posted about them on their blog. Mark Reich of C&EN even wrote a little blurb about them in the Newscripts section for the February 8th issue that year. As a result (the lesson here being never encourage a person like me) I made some more the following year, posted them to reddit again, and had a similar (though slightly less enthusiastic) response.

This year I had some more time at home, having taken parental leave after the birth of a child. Quite literally while holding a tiny baby, I managed to make a fresh batch of five cards for Valentine’s Day 2018, and even to re-do the artwork for the original 2016 set (which originally suffered both from my childlike drawing ability and my utter lack of experience using Adobe Illustrator).

You can find 2018’s crop of Valentines here.

You can find all of the Valentines here, including the re-done batch from 2016.

Because nothing says “Valentine’s Day” like an endearing groan or sigh from the one you love.