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Wild Card, Lawrenceville's new stationery, card and craft boutique, offers something for everyone on Valentine's Day.
If roses and a box of chocolates seem too prosaic to give to your valentine, shop at Wild Card, which offers a mix of quirky cards, stationery, jewelry and crafts, many of them made by local artisans.
Owner Rebecca Morris opened the Lawrenceville shop last October and filled it with vintage touches, including an antique typewriter and a pinball machine, and once a month, she displays the work of an area artist. The store also has become something of a clubhouse for local crafts folk. Members of the Pittsburgh Craft Collective meet there monthly to work on their quilts and collages.
If your sweetheart enjoys painting and fading pop-culture references, pick up a Let’s Paint the ’90s coloring book ($12.95), and she can spend a nostalgic afternoon coloring Monica Lewinsky in her blue beret, Hugh Grant’s mug shot and Milli Vanilli.
If you think she would like to make her own stuffed animals, buy a Woolpets kit ($16-$20), each of which contains wool, needles and the instructions to create a small, fuzzy bluebird or red fox.
Or, simply buy one of Morris’ own Valentine’s Day card collages ($3; pictured above, top and right). The funky, handmade cards layer irregular-shaped hearts with whimsical paper patterns.
Morris also stocks valentines made by Pittsburgh craft companies. The Point Needlecraft and Fabric Arts, an online crafts-goods shop out of Bellevue, creates luxurious cards adorned with small fabric collages ($5, pictured above, left). If your beloved enjoys bright candy colors and abhors sentimental prose, give her a card made by Pink Bathtub out of Mount Lebanon ($3.50, pictured above, center). And if she’s really not into sweet sayings, buy a valentine from L2 Design Collective from the North Side ($4.25). The spare brown cards ask “Wanna?” and leave a sly blank space for her to answer.
Wild Card also takes the anxiety out of Valentine’s Day shopping for the man in your life. The store offers a wide selection of hip T-shirts celebrating the Steelers and the Penguins. Examples include a shirt emblazoned with Myron Cope’s face that reads “Double Yoi!” made by Campfire Goods in Regent Square ($22), and other T’s made by Jim Shearer of Milkit Productions in Shaler Township ($20). (4209 Butler St., Lawrenceville. Tues.-Wed., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Thurs., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun., noon-6 p.m. Info: 412/224-2651, wildcardpgh.com)
