by Jackie Bultje | Jan 10, 2020 | Heartfelt, Valentine's |
Hello stampers and happy Friday to you. I am very late writing this blog post because I had a Dutch Demo open house today. First of all I want to share a brand new venture, Valentine’s Day cards for the Canadian troops. This project was initiated by my very own team member Carolyn Hansen-Henderson. Do you want to know more about this Valentine’s project?
Valentine’s Day Cards for our troops
Even though Canadians are known for their peace keeping efforts, we have a lot of troops overseas. It can be very difficult to be far away from loved ones, especially on days like Valentine’s Day. If you want to brighten the day of some soldiers, then you can send your card or cards to Stampin’Up! Canada and they will send them to our army bases abroad. You need to act fast!
Announcing: Valentines for Canadian Armed Forces 💝
Calling all Canadian paper crafters! Let’s show our Canadian Armed Forces how much we appreciate them.
Over the next three weeks, we wish to invite everyone to make Valentine cards and send them into the Stampin’ Up! office in Calgary (received by January 24th). We have partnered with Carolyn Henderson (an Ontario demonstrator) to get those cards into the hands of Canadian troops by Valentine’s Day!
Send your cards to:
Valentine Cards for Canadian Veterans
C/O Stampin’ Up! Canada
Suite 330, 2618 Hopewell Place NE
Calgary, AB T1Y 7J7
There are lots of appropriate sentiments to choose from to stamp into your card. Choose a Valentine’s Day sentiment, or a simple Thank You, or an appreciation sentiment like ‘Grateful For You’.
Please consider writing a little note in the card to make it personal from you. Something like these:
“Thank you for risking your life for our freedom.”
“We feel secure and safe because you made sure that we do. With much gratitude and appreciation.”
Hope you will join us in this worthy effort,
Dale Hampshire
Stampin’ Up! Canada 💝
Remember: no glitter or foil paper for safety reasons!!
Heartfelt Valentine’s Day Card
I thought it was time for me to feature a card that I made myself! When I heard about this Valentine’s Card for the Canadian troops project, I decided to make a card too. Even though it says friend, I think that is ok, everyone is someone’s friend and if a soldier is overseas defending my freedom or promoting peace I consider them a friend. Be sure to take the opportunity to write something heartfelt in your card. Believe me, happy mail is powerful!
This card actually uses the left over pieces from the card that I made for the February Demo Design Dream team tutorial. The hearts in the first picture inspired this card since I liked how they looked on this barnboard paper. This paper is left over from the holiday mini from a fall collection that I can’t remember the name of now! Here’s the inside that I like as much as the outside!! Happy mail in Holland has taught me to pay attention to all aspects of the card.
Happy Mail in Holland Contest
Your happy mail cards keep arriving and making my heart happy. I was planning on featuring two of these cards today but I really needed to post about the Valentine’s Day cards for the Canadian troops as well, so I am only going to feature one card today. This gorgeous card comes all the way from Newfoundland, Canada. Maureen Power is the artist and she lives in Goulds, Newfoundland. It is a neighbourhood of the bigger city of St John’s which is the capital city of the province. I really do hope to visit there some time this decade.
Maureen’s Card
Maureen used the beautiful Most Wonderful Time Product Medley for this card as well as copper foil paper and a gorgeous framelit from the holiday mini that I do not own. I don’t have a catalog with me so I don’t remember the name of it. You will need to help me out with this! Here is another angle so you can see all the lovely details.
The envelope also made me smile with all these cheerful critters. I couldn’t decide if they were baby groundhogs, baby squirrels or baby seals. It makes me feel a little silly admitting this to you, but maybe you can help me out here too.
Tomorrow is Saturday but I have a feeling that there could be another blog post so that I can keep up with all the happy mail. What a great “problem” to have. Your Canadian squirrel is smiling. Now I am going to go out on a date with my handsome Dutchman. Have a super day!!
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by Jackie Bultje | Jan 9, 2020 | Blends, Christmas, Toile Christmas, vellum |
Hello stampers and happy Thursday to you. Today I am featuring cardinal happy mail from New Brunswick and the artist is Sue MacDonald. Sue is from the city of Moncton which is famous for it’s tidal bore in the Petitcodiac river which makes the water flow backwards during the tide! You can read more about this fascinating city here. I love that it was first settled by Pennsylvania Dutch people in the 1700’s. Moncton is a resilient city that has bounced back from two serious economic downturns. How inspiring!
Sue MacDonald’s card
Here is Sue’s beautiful card featuring one of my favourite birds, the northern cardinal. She used the Toile Christmas stamp set and Toile Tidings paper with a very vanilla cardstock base.
I love all the details in this card. The sentiment is stamped in memento black on a very vanilla oval. There is a vellum overlay to soften the colours of the patterned paper which allows the cardinal to really pop. If Sue had not used that clever trick the card may have looked too “busy”. It is truly a lovely effect. The branch and the cardinal were both coloured with Blends which give a very rich effect. Have I mentioned that I am totally addicted to Blends? Colouring is very therapeutic and Blends make it easy, even for people who are a bit afraid of colouring. More than one person at my classes has been converted to the joy of colouring after using Blends!
Happy Mail
Once again, I had to take a picture of the envelope. I love how the envelope also tells a story and has it’s own beauty. Of course, the fact that Sue stamped some prancing deer on the front definitely takes it up a notch! I think I have just been inspired to do something very special with all these envelopes!! This “happy mail in Holland” contest is really bringing me a lot of joy and I thank each and every one of you for participating. Are you enjoying “traveling” to the different places these cards are coming from?
I think the deer may be contraband, which is my pet word for any products that are not Stampin’Up! No worries, I have my own little contraband stash at home. I love wooden vintage stamps so I have a small collection of those. If you want to participate in the contest you can send me your card at Bloemenlaan 6, 2691 JC ‘s-Gravenzande, the Netherlands.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for stopping by today and for taking the time to comment, to pin my cards or to share my posts. I am grateful that you are a part of my tribe. Happy stamping and have a super day. Remember, if you are feeling down, the best way to cheer up is to do something nice for someone else. Happy mail is always great to make and to give. Hugs from Holland! Say hello to any cardinals you might see in Canada, I am missing this iconic red bird and the snow. If you want to see another card made with this beautiful cardinal, check out this blog post .I gave this card to my Oom Stoffel this weekend. Here is another post where the cardinal is converted to a blue jay.
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by Jackie Bultje | Jan 8, 2020 | clearance rack, Everything is Rosy |
Hello stampers and happy Wednesday to you. Everything is Rosy is the very first product medley that Stampin’Up! has created. I didn’t buy it because I didn’t think I would have enough time to market it as it was only available for one month. The good news for you is that it is now on the clearance rack. You can see it here! Yesterday I received a LOT of happy mail, five cards, and one of them used this beautiful product medley.
Joanne Foster’s Card
This lovely card was made by Joanne Foster and it came in a padded envelope all the way from Australia. I am feeling the love. The sentiment on the card says “time to celebrate all the lovely things in life starting with you.” Joanne lives in Grovedale, Victoria which is about 70 kilometres from Melbourne. Jo is a loyal follower of my business Facebook page and has also shown love to my parents by sending them a card when Pap was sick. Thanks so much for this happy mail Jo!
My top three favourite things about this card and this product medley are:
- the gorgeous ribbon and double bow
- the beautiful rose gold foil paper and the beautifully detailed die cut
- the solid image stamps that make for a bold and dramatic background
The Blessings of the Happy Mail in Holland Contest
One of the biggest blessings of the happy mail in Holland contest is that you, my readers get exposed to lots of different card making styles. I am really enjoying blogging about cards that are not my own. It would seem that seeing your own card on someone’s blog would be quite exciting and I am ever so happy to provide that opportunity. You should see the excitement at this end of the world when the mailman comes. By the way, the mailman comes here on a scooter and he uses the bike paths! Yesterday when I was biking, he passed me on the path. I was joking to Gerard that I should have a sign on my back that says “tourist biker”. That way people can exercise caution around me and lower their expectations. Tomorrow I have four more cards to blog about. If the mailbox fills up too quickly I will start blogging again with more than one card per post.
Demo Design Dream Team
In November I was asked to collaborate with a group of talented demonstrators to form the Demo Design Dream Team with the purpose of creating a monthly tutorial. We cannot sell this tutorial but we can use it as an incentive for our team members and for a bonus gift with each $50 order. Here is sneak peek of the cards that are included.
Thanks!
Thanks again for joining me, it is so nice to read your comments and to see your “silent footprints”. WordPress analytics lets me know how many people stop by and how they found me. A very interesting behind the scenes look at a blog. If you missed my Facebook live video yesterday, I have now posted it to YouTube as well. You can find it here. Have you subscribed to my YouTube channel? There are lots of nuggets there from the past few years.
I hope you have a super day and happy stamping. If you see the product medley on the product list, the price says $109 but it is actually on sale for $59, so that is a fantastic deal.
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by Jackie Bultje | Jan 7, 2020 | Special Someone |
Hello stampers and happy Tuesday to you! Have you seen Special Someone in the catalog? It is the cutest stamp set. I did see it right away because it has the cutest squirrel in it, but I didn’t buy it yet! How happy was I to find happy mail on Saturday with this cute card in it? There is one problem. A certain bachelor who lives at Bloemenlaan 6 has a very old mailbox that he bought in North Carolina a very long time ago. Said mailbox does not close properly. This Canadian has come to realize that this situation is fraught with danger! Way too many rainy days, often accompanied by wind. These conditions do not bode well for happy mail.
Help Solve the Mystery
So now I need you to help me solve a mystery. I have this super cute card but the important information has been washed off by the rain. This may call for an intervention with the mailbox situation don’t you think? Here are the facts: the card is mailed and created by someone in the Netherlands. There is a cryptic number on the back: 8414 Cbnr2. I have a guess that it might be from Corinne Oosterhoff but that is a stab in the dark.
Special Someone Card
Here is the second question? Do you see those cute leaves in the background? Which set are they from? I hope to have the answer to that question this week! (the leaves are from the Poppy framelits, thanks LeAnne for telling me that) Here is the envelope and the back of the card. I forgot to mention that this special little card also has a fancy fold to reveal the sentiment in behind the squirrel and raccoon. If says “hallo liefje” which means hello little love. The “je” is the diminutive of the world which makes it cuter and more adorable. Just like “vriend” means friend, but “vriendje” means boyfriend!
This adorable card is 3″ by 3″. I was amazed that it arrived in the mail. In Canada they will NOT mail this one, so do be aware of that. Our notecards and envelopes are the smallest size that will be accepted by Canada Post.
edited: this card was created by Corinne Oosterhoff who lives in Nieuwehorne, in the beautiful northern province of Friesland in the Netherlands. This is an old town, dating back to 1315!! Here is Corinne’s own picture showing how it pops up! What a hidden gem.
Dual Stampin’Up! Demonstrator
I am super excited to be able to announce that I am now also officially a demonstrator in the Netherlands. My stamp room was rather inadequately stocked so I needed more supplies. I listened to my own advice and got the best deal in the catalog! The starter kit is on it’s way to Bloemenlaan 6. I will then also have a copy of the annual catalog and the saleabration catalog. How much fun is that? On Friday I am excited to be hosting my first ever Stampin’Up! event in Holland. It will be a Dutch demonstrator meet and greet. #itsallaboutthetreats so we will gather around food and I hope we will have lots of creative projects to share. I am also going to be asking a lot of questions as to how they run their businesses over here. Every market is different and I am very curious to learn more.
Botanical Prints Product Medley tutorial
I don’t know about you, but I love having ideas and instructions for the products I buy. If I can get a jumpstart on my creativity it can make such a difference. That is why when I first started stamping I bought Stampin’Up products. The catalog was bound to have a few ideas and back in the day they had project sheets with three to five more ideas. If you bought “contraband” stamps there were NO samples to recreate. Let me introduce to you this great tutorial with ten cards for the Botanical Prints product medley. If you plan to come to my retreat then you will get this pdf for free as well as the Product Medley. We will be making some if not all of the cards together.
Corner Flip Fold Card
This corner flip card is one of the cards included in the tutorial. Here is a picture of just that card. I am quite confident that you are going to love this product medley. If you order this medley online from me I will give you the tutorial for free so that you have what you need to have instant success!
Thanks!
Thanks so much for stopping by! I have one more story to share with you and it shows the power of social media and also the simple ways we can really help each other! On Monday morning I noticed that I had more than twice the normal amount of blog views. I also had a ton of newsletter subscription requests. Something out of the ordinary had happened. After checking my site statistics I was able to find out that the viewers were coming from YouTube. More specifically they were coming from Jan Brown a demonstrator from the UK. She wanted to make a double point flip card and she found my card and my video on Pinterest. She then linked my blog to her video and blog post. This is the post that has my video on this fancy fold. So nice to help our fellow demonstrators get into the spotlight. Jan does beautiful work, you can check out her blog here. She made a great card using the Painted Poppies stamp set.
Thank YOU to for all the times you have pinned my cards to Pinterest or shared my videos or other Facebook posts. It all really does make a difference! I hope you have a super day, the sun is trying to shine here. See you later in my weekly live video at 9am EST or 3pm in the Netherlands. Remember, you are MY special someone.
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by Jackie Bultje | Jan 6, 2020 | Happy Mail in Holland, Heirloom Frames Dies, Memories & More cards, Uncategorized |
Hello stampers and happy Monday to you. What is the most important thing in your life? That was the question we were asked in church yesterday and it really made me think. Sometimes we get so busy with our lives and the day to day things that need to get done that we forget to ask ourselves that question. At the beginning of a new year, indeed a new decade, I think it is a very good question to ponder. What do you spend the most time doing? If you have extra money where does it go? What do you spend a lot of time thinking about? When you answer those questions, you get closer to finding your “dioko”, the Greek word that means to seek after eagerly, earnestly endeavour to acquire.
There are lots of things that I love and that are very important to me and card making and stamping is at the top of the list. Traveling, baking, reading, pickleball, walking, wine, those are all great, but without my faith, without salvation, they would mean absolutely nothing. That is a sobering reality but also a deep comfort. What is your most important thing? What do you believe?
Happy Mail from Janis
On Friday I received this beautiful card from Janis Taylor from Chatham, Ontario. Janis is also on my team and I happen to know that she sends a LOT of cards to a lot of people. I first met Janis when she came to my Hearts for Haiti fundraiser. At that time Janis was still a public health nurse. Now she is a regular volunteer at the Chatham-Kent Hospice. We also play pickleball together once in a while and when we pair up we make a pretty mean team that I affectionately refer to as “Tall and Small”. Janis is convinced that all Dutch people are giants!
Here you can see some more detail in Janis’ card. The touch of silver thread in behind that gorgeous embossed frame from the Heirloom frames collection is so pretty. A few shiny black sequins add just the right added interest. I’m pretty sure she also ran the patterned paper through the Subtle embossing folder for a truly subtle touch. If you want to kick up your card a notch, this is a great way to do it! The focal point of this card is actually a Memories and More card from a few years ago. If you are looking for fun and easy card making, be sure to check out our Memories and More cards, they are definitely for more than just memory keeping.
Janis’ card fits in so well with what is on my mind today. It is so true that if you begin each day with a grateful heart you will be so much happier and your joy and gratitude will spill over to others that you meet. I am so grateful to Janis and to everyone else who has a sent happy mail to Holland. Your cards are a vivid reminder of how important card making really is. I am firmly convinced that it is so much more than just a hobby. What are you grateful for today?
Grateful
I am so grateful for the added benefit of being close to my extended family while I am in Holland visiting Gerard. For most of my life my cousins have been people I saw only rarely and I often missed having family near by. Now it’s time to make up for lost time!! This weekend I visited with these cousins and my Dad’s youngest brother. Have you noticed that as you get older differences in age matter less and less? Staying in contact with my relatives is super important to me.
Being surrounded by centuries of history never gets old either!! Pardon the pun. Zierikzee is the beautiful city that is very close to the village where my Pap was born. This past Saturday I was able to show it off to Gerard.
This scene captures what I love so much about Dutch cities. They all have large open squares that serve so many purposes. It allows restaurants to have large terraces (patios) so people can sit outside. This space also serves as the location for the weekly farmer’s market and also for other town celebrations. It is just the perfect place to be gezellig. This time they had a skating rink set up for the kids as well as an “oliebollen kraam” where you get fresh treats and another booth where you could get a shot of Jagermeister or hot mulled wine or hot chocolate. So nice to see everyone outside together enjoying themselves.
#itsallaboutthetreats
Dutch people might not bake a lot at home, but there is no shortage of good food. All those lovely cheese shops!! Be still my heart. We did go into a bakery, but only to look. Carrying around pastries for a few hours didn’t seem like a great idea. Self-control was necessary because I was planning to bake an apple cake for my other cousins the next day!
I love seeing all the detail in the old architecture as well, so traipsing around an old city on a Saturday afternoon and ending with dinner in a small Thai restaurant was definitely a great way to spend a weekend. The weather wasn’t great, the sun had disappeared but at least it wasn’t raining and the wool hat that I bought at #OnStageQuebec has served me very well.
Free Tutorial with $50 order
Just a reminder that with a $50 purchase you get an amazing pdf tutorial with 16 cards from the demo design dream team. With a $60 purchase you get a free saleabration product. I am so happy to be able to offer you this little perk for shopping with me. I hope you have a super day. Thanks for dropping by.
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