Hello stampers and happy Wednesday to you. While you are reading this, I am on the way to Schiphol, the airport in Amsterdam. I thought it would be appropriate to blog about a Valentine’s card today, so here is my Heartfelt Teepee card. This trip was all about love and my heart is indeed full. I am blessed.
Heartfelt Teepee Card
This was actually the first teepee card that I made and it feels like I have already blogged about it. I did use this photo for advertising a Valentine’s Day class that I am doing when I get back, but I have not featured it in a blog, so here we go! I also made it during a Facebook live video. What happened is that happy mail kept arriving, so I blogged about that instead.
It’s super easy to change the look of the card by choosing different patterned paper.
How To Video
It really is so much easier to learn how to do things when you watch a video don’t you think? Here is a picture of how the folded pieces go together, but then do be sure to watch the video for more information. This card style is included in my Peaceful Poppies tutorial which you can find in this post.
Heartfelt
If you are feeling alone, unloved or unhappy I just want to encourage you that you are never too old and it is never too late to find true love. Trust your heart, be courageous and fight for love! Relationships can drift apart, people change, but do everything in your power to reconnect with the one you fell in love. If all has been tried and there is no result, then you know you have not left a stone unturned. I am so very thankful for the people in my life who encouraged me on my journey. I am loved, I am blessed and I am so very, very thankful.
Hello stampers and happy Tuesday. Today’s card features Inspiring Iris and some saleabration items. One of the saleabration items is the stamp set Sending You Thoughts and the other is the assorted patterned paper pack that you can get for free when you get the starter kit. Sneaky of me right?
Inspiring Iris
Inspiring Iris is the stamp set that I got as one of the stamp sets in my starter kit in the Netherlands. I love DistINKtive stamps and this is a beautiful of example of this technology. One stamp looks like you did amazing things because it gives you different colours and textures. It is also a two-step stamp that gives you an outline stamp and then a “filler” stamp. Now that we have the stamparatus which is a fantastic stamp positioning tool, it makes it super easy to use two step stamps, even if you have shaky hands or bad eyes.
My Clean and Simple Card
I wanted to make a quick and easy card using this stamp set for two reasons. Time is short today with lots to do including baking, packing and shopping, not to mention a live video!! Secondly, it is important to know that you can make a beautiful card in very little time with just a few supplies. Here it is:
I will be showing this card during my Facebook live at 9amEST today or 3pm in Holland. This is my last full day here! It is amazing how quickly seven weeks flew by and also how at home I feel here. Love does amazing things.
Iris’s are a beautiful flower and I do love a purple and green colour combination. This paper pack was sitting on my desk and it inspired me. The paper is part of an assorted 6×6 inch pack that you can get for free if you get the starter kit during saleabration. The colours I used are highland heather and granny apple green. Isn’t it striking to have the focal point off to the side? The crinkled seam binding ties the image and the sentiment together into one beautiful focal point. Saleabration is a great time to get free items including this Sending You Thoughts stamp set which is where I got the sentiment from.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for joining me on my blog today and also throughout my time in Holland. I have greatly enjoyed sharing my experiences here in this beautiful little country. Tomorrow I fly home, but I will try to have a few blog posts ready to go before I leave. If for some reason this doesn’t happen you will hear from me again on Friday. Have a super day.
Hello stampers and happy Monday to you. Today I have a huge double Z-fold card for you. When I saw the sheet of peaceful poppies designer series paper with the big stems of poppies I knew I wanted to use this on a BIG card so that the flowers would remain intact. It’s a lot of fun making a big card.
Huge Double Z-Fold Card
Let’s take a look at this beauty. When it folds up it is six inches square, so that means you have to make your own envelope!
Here is another look when it is closed.
I just love how the patterned paper gets used to its full capacity here, I even used the patterned paper for the leaves and as the background for the focal point. The Peaceful Poppies paper really is terrific.
The saying in the inside of the card is from Inspiring Iris. You could also leave it blank and write your own personal note inside. Alternatively you could put a white panel on the back for a longer missive.
When A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
It’s story time. Last week two cousins came to visit me and one of them brought along some old photos. This was one of them. It is a great old photo of a children’s choir from my mom’s home town of Maasdijk. My mom and her sister are in the middle of the photo. You can find Adrie with the red mark (someone must have done that so that everyone would know which one she was) and the girl to the left of her is my mom Rina.
Imagine my surprise when I get a message from my uncle on Pap’s side of the family saying that he is also in this picture. Pap’s family is from Zeeland, a different province in Holland an hour’s drive away in this day and age. Back then it took longer to travel that distance, especially since Zeeland is an island. So what was Oom Stoffel doing in Maasdijk as part of the children’s choir?
How the War Brought Families Together
I immediately knew that this picture must have been taken during the war. Indeed, after some questioning, I found out that this picture was taken either in the fall of 1944 or spring of 1945. How amazing that in those dark days of war they still had a children’s choir!
Do you want to know why my uncle was in this picture? You see, all the people from Zeeland province were evacuated because the Germans flooded this island province to prevent a possible landing from the Allies. The Boot family came to live in Maasdijk and they met the Robbemond family at church.
The families became friends and that is how my Pap met my Mom. There is a five and a half year age gap between my mom and my Pap, so when they first met there was no romance. In fact, Pap was interested in Mom’s older sister! That never developed into anything, but it was years later when they finally “saw” each other and fell in love. My Oom Stoffel is the cutie in the bottom row, far right. Mom’s other sister Bep is in the second row, fifth from the left.
I remember my Pap telling me the story of how he walked to Maasdijk from Zeeland taking some animals with him. I can’t remember if it was cows or horses or some of each. He walked for three days to get there! Being here in Holland has been wonderful to meet more of my relatives and discover more of my own heritage. It is humbling to see how God works to weave the threads of our family history.
Peaceful Poppies pdf Tutorial
I am thrilled to tell you that my latest tutorial is now complete and ready for purchase. It has colour pictures and instructions for ten great cards. Four of the ten cards are different fancy folds. I hope you enjoy it!! Just click on the button below to purchase it and I will get a notification and send it to you. Thanks so much for your support, I appreciate you all very, very much.
Hello stampers and happy Saturday to you! I was over the moon happy to receive Gertie Boven’s happy mail yesterday. There had been a bit of a dry spell for happy mail, so this was a welcome surprise. What a beautiful card it is too! Thanks so much Gertie.
Gertie Boven’s Card
Gertie used Tropical Oasis to make her bright and cheerful card. She is also from Dutch decent, so she is well aware that Dutch winters can be dreary and that this card would be a ray of sunshine. I love all the textures that Gertie incorporated into her card. She used the basket weave embossing folder in the background, some gorgeous burlap and a big gold double bow. The flowers are nestled among some beautiuflly detailed cut and embossed mossy meadow leaves. Let’s take a look.
Of course I have to guess at how Gertie coloured her hibiscus flowers. I didn’t take this bundle with me so I can’t take a close look at the stamp set either. You know you have made a great card when I can wait to start playing with the set! It could be watercolour with aquapainters, it could be watercolour pencils or even Blends. I do know that she used Wink of Stella on the flowers. Here is a close up shot of all the lovely details.
Emo, Ontario
That is the town that Gertie comes from, although she is originally from Chatham, Ontario. I first met Gertie when she was in town visiting her parents. She had seen some information about my classes on Facebook and she is a cousin of one of my team members, Linda Brouwer. Small world! Emo is even smaller!! This is what Wikipedia said “It is a human settlement along the Rainy River in northwestern Ontario.” Really? A human settlement? As opposed to aliens? I found this so peculiar. Maybe it is because the wildlife population is so high there.
With 1200 people it isn’t such a tiny community. It looks like it is a vibrant, scenic community with lots of hunting, fishing and even race car driving. You can read all about it here. I really do love this part of the Happy Mail in Holland Contest. Now I know what the “MOM’s Way” is: the Manitoba, Ontario, Minnesota scenic route. Thanks again for your beautiful card Gertie!!
Embossing Folders
I had hoped to show you some other cards that I had made with the basket weave embossing folders, but my search turned up empty. What to do? Well, I was inspired by the natural beauty of the Emo woodland, so the woodland embossing folder would be a good one to share as well. If you check out this blog post you will see how to stamp on the woodland embossing folder for an amazing technique! Embossing folders really are amazing tools.
More History
On Monday I will share another great vintage family picture and the very fascinating story that goes along with it. It really is so amazing to spend a chunk of time in the land of my forebears and learning all this great history. Thanks so much for joining me today, and stay tuned. I hope you still remember to shop with me and that you haven’t forgotten about the great opportunity with the starter kit. You might forget that I am actually in this for a business and not just as a storyteller!! Have a super day.
Hello stampers and happy Friday. Today I have gone a little out of my comfort zone to design a geometric poppies card. I wanted to challenge myself and do something a little different. Geometric designs are not my strong suit but I am quite happy with how my card turned out. What style do you struggle with?
Geometric Poppies
All of my peaceful poppies designer series paper was laying out and I just love so many of the designs and wanted to combine them on a card. That is how I came up with the idea of doing a geometric design with poppies. I started out with cutting a bunch of circles and squares with the stitched shape framelits. I scattered them on my background paper and played around a bit with what looked good together. Truth be told, it took a few different design layouts before I was satisfied.
The smaller squares got turned diagonally to make them diamonds and they are also all popped up to create more interest and dimenstion. I toyed around with the idea of creating a banner for the sentiment, mostly because I wanted to cover up that tiny black mark that I made. The sentiment looked better stamped right on the card. A banner messed up the crisp lines of the geometric design. In the end I was playing around with needing just a little something extra and that is how I came up with the poppy from the Peaceful Poppies elements. It has been so much fun incorporating those elements into my peaceful poppy cards!
If you want to see another card that I made incorporating a geometric stamp set, you can see it here.
The Most Important Tool
I often forget to write about how often I use my stamparatus. It really is the most important tool! For this card I used it to stamp my sentiment. Especially if your ink pad is of a certain vintage, your sentiment might not turn out as dark and crisp as you like. If you use the stamparatus then you can stamp several times in the exact same spot for absolute perfection. You see, the stamparatus is a stamp positioning tool. If you want to see a video on it, you can see it here.
A Little Vintage
Last night I caught up with some more cousins, this time it was two daughters from my mom’s favourite sister growing up. Tante Adrie (short for Adriana) was younger than mom by 16 months. She came to visit Mom in Canada when I was a year old and my cousins had some pictures from the visit for me. Some of them I had never seen before so that was really special!
The first time I looked at this photo of my Pap, I didn’t even see myself looking through the back window of the truck!!
With my mom my sister Adriana and my brother Oliver. I was about a year old here. Looks like I am either ready for a nap or just woke up!!
I’m pretty sure my dad made these little wooden chairs. This is me with my cousin Dan. It is so nice coming across pieces of your own history and to see how our stories intertwine. Thanks for indulging my walk through nostalgia!
Happy Mail in Holland
I just came back from a little shopping trip with Gerard’ sister. We hit a few used stores, they are called “kringloop” here. I found some great little leather shoes for the grandkids, some Royal Albert Old Country Roses dishes and a cute little book with all Dutch words for the grandkids. When I came home I checked the mailbox and there was happy mail. Thanks Gertie Boven, I will blog about your card tomorrow. I haven’t even opened it yet!
I just had to take a picture of these cute little “bikes”. They teach the littles how to have good balance so they can bike right away without training wheels.
PDF Tutorial
If you are liking the Peaceful Poppies cards, you will be happy to know that I now have a complete pdf tutorial for all ten cards. Here is a picture. Just click the buy now button if you want it. It’s that simple! It does take a bit before I get the notification from PayPal, but when I do I will send it to you.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for popping by today, I always feel like we have had a little chat together. I am hoping to start writing like a fiend after this and get a good chunk of my new Peaceful Poppies pdf tutorial done. First a live video with my training group and then nose to the grindstone. It was fun playing tourist this morning, tomorrow I will share some more pictures.
