We need a new supply of brightly colored hearts for the Boothbay Common.

Friends from Massachusetts have added colorful ones each year, but the original brightly colored hearts have faded over the last three years.

CALLING ALL CRAFTERS: Needle workers and people who just like to sew from all over the Boothbay region -- We need your help again -- so many of you donated the original hearts which will still be hung with new ones.

You know how dark and dreary the month of February can be! The Boothbay Civic Association is again sponsoring the decorating of the Boothbay Common trees for the entire month. The barren branches will be hung with cotton stuffed hearts (in sets of two) in every color of the rainbow and plans are to cover the entire perimeter of trees if we have enough hearts.

Last year, three crafters from Massachusetts made 500 hearts, spent the night in Boothbay Harbor and decorated the trees at St. Andrews Village.

We hope you will be able to help us with brightening the Boothbay Common, the gateway to our region.

Directions, pattern and samples are at the Boothbay Town Office during business hours 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. The drop-off box will also be at the Town Office.

If you are temporarily away from the Boothbay region and would like to participate, ask a family member or a friend to mail you the pattern and directions.

The hearts are easily made and take very little fabric. Cut them from any smooth cotton fabric you have, new or used. Any bright color, plain or with a pattern, all shades of red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue or purple -- no gray, white or black.

Machine stitched or hand-sewn, approximately 6½" x 7¼" stuffed with polyesterfil or fibrefil, each two are joined together with a crocheted chain (or you can use heavy-duty string). This chain is then wrapped around the branch and the weighted hearts hang down. They glisten with color when it snows and withstand inclement weather very well. Again, the Boothbay Civic Association will store them to be used next year.

Perhaps sewing groups and crafters will work together to make the hearts. Someone has also suggested some folks may wish to make hearts in memory of a departed military man or woman, possibly bearing their name.

Please drop them off at the Boothbay Town Office by Thursday, January 31. We realize that time is short and that everybody has been busy with holiday plans.

Volunteering young people from the region will be hanging the hearts on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, February 1, 2 or 3, depending on the weather. This is a community project -- something we will ALL enjoy again - for the "common good."