Create a “Word Cloud” Love Note

I’m always looking for fun ways to say those magic three words to my wife. That’s not to say that I don’t say them in plain English, but it’s fun to find other ways to tell my wife that I love her. No matter how much she likes hearing me say that I love her, I’m sure she appreciates the effort that goes into expressing my love in a unique and original way. If nothing else, it shows that I put some thought into telling her that I love her.

Here’s a great way I found to make a unique love note, and the other great thing (besides being a unique love note) is that you don’t have to be a poet to do it. All you have to do is be able to come up with a list of words, and type them in your computer. Can you handle that?

Okay, there’s this fun little site on the Internet, called “wordle.net.” This site will take whatever list of words or body of text you give it, and create a word cloud from those words. All you have to do is come up with the words.

You can either copy something, like a poem, a love story, or something from this blog, or you can type in your own list of words. For the sample I show above, I typed in a list of words. They were essentially a list of 39 words that I made up, based upon my relationship with my wife. I just typed them in the box on the applet and wordle.net came up with my love note.

Here’s some ideas for your list of words:

• Your wife’s name – in all its variations, my wife’s name is Deborah, that means I typed in Deborah, Debbie, and Deb
• The words “love” and “you”
• Pet names, like “honey” or “sexy” that you might use for your wife
• Attributes that you like about her such as “beautiful” or “funny”
• Things that you do together such as “walk” “swim”
• Any special code words that you use between yourselves as a couple

Okay, one of the keys to how any word cloud works is that the number of repetitions of a word determine how big that word comes out. So, you want to repeat words like “love,” “you,” pet names, her name, and special words like “forever” and “together.” Remember, the more times you repeat them, the larger they show up. If you look in my sample, the biggest word is “love,” that’s because I typed it in 8 times. The words which show up the next larger size were typed in 5 times, etc.

When you push the button, wordle.net will automatically create your word cloud. If you don’t like it, or think it might look better a little different, you can hit the button that says “open in window.” This will make a separate window of your word cloud. Then, you can hit the “randomize” button and let wordle.net give it another shot. There are quite a few variations available that wordle.net can produce.You can also change the color and layout by clicking on the pull-down menus for those selections, which are right above your word cloud.

You can also go back to add words, or add iterations of words. All you have to do is hit the “back” button on your browser, this will take you to the home page of the site; then hit the “forward” button and it will take you to the page where you entered your word list. Don’t hit the “create” button again, as this will give you a blank page for entering your list.

Have fun, be creative, and make your wife a special love note.