by Jackie Bultje | Dec 28, 2019 | Christmas, Happy Mail in Holland, Santa's sleigh |
Hello stampers. Yesterday I got happy mail from Belgium, from Canada and from the United States! I am just loving going to the mailbox to look for “Stampin’Up!” shaped envelopes. Today I will share the card from Belgium. The most amazing thing is that Stampin’Up! products are not even sold in Belgium so Christine has to go to quite the effort to buy the products.
Christine’s Card
Here is Christine’s beautiful card. I am not sure which stamp sets she used, I think some of them must be retired and the main image is what I fondly refer to as “contraband”. I love the vintage feel of this card and the combination of early espresso with balmy blue. If you want to check out Christine’s blog you can do that here.
It’s All in the Details
I took a picture of the envelopes as well because I love all the little details and I thought you might too. They inspired me to add a little love to my envelopes too!
#itsallaboutthetreats
Yesterday we had an unexpected gift of time as the flower picking was done early. Gerard asked me if I wanted to go to Bakker Vreugdenhil. This is the famous bakery in my mom’s hometown of Maasdijk. Of course I said yes. Instead of baking for my evening get together with some friends, I picked up an “Amandel Slof” which was an amazing almond pastry with whipped cream and who knows what other yumminess. It wasn’t the most beautiful pastry on display but was it ever good. It may well be a new favourite.
I do have a great weakness for fresh pastries. See that beautiful fruit tart? I had one of those for dessert. With all that fruit is a pretty healthy option!!
Thanks!
Thanks very much for the happy mail Christine, your name will go into the draw for the framelits. I will do the draw on January 30 when I am back in Chatham. Thanks also to everyone who stopped by today to read this post. Have a super day!
by Jackie Bultje | Dec 24, 2019 | Blends, Botanical Prints Product Medley |
Hello stampers and happy Christmas Eve day to all of you. Today I want to share with you a soft floral Botanical Prints card. My collection of cards for this Product Medley is growing. The pdf for all of them will be my project between Christmas and New Year. Would you like to see this soft floral card?
The Card
I used the floral branch stamp and the coordinating die to make two accents for my sentiment. They look so soft and pretty coloured with Petal Pink and Old Olive Blends. Add a little Wink of Stella and then it is super pretty. There are some laser cut card fronts included in the Botanical Prints Product Medley and I can a strip off of one of them and put it under the front panel as a pretty accent. My background was stamped with grey granite. The person presenting this Product Medley at #OnStage2019 in Toronto used this technique. I thought it was very clever!
Some Gleanings
I am finding that this gorgeous medley of products is exceptionally lovely. The stamps works so well for making your own backgrounds. Old olive is a wonderful colour that pairs with so many other colours. You can totally change the mood of your card depending on your colour scheme. The images work well for colouring with Blends or with stamping on shimmery white cardstock and then watercolouring with aqua painters. You can get super creative with this medley. I haven’t used a ton of the patterned paper yet, I find that I am gravitating more to the black and white side because I am not a huge fan of the colours on the other side but I am going to see if I can overcome this challenge. Here is the live video I did on this card and it also shows the other cards I have made so far.
Merry Christmas to You
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very merry Christmas and a blessed New Year. May peace, joy and love surround you during this festive season.
If Gerard is busy in the greenhouse then I will keep blogging and videoing as per usual. It is noticeable according to my site traffic that many of you are busy with Christmas preparations and are not online the way you usually are. That means you will have a lot to catch up on later. Happy reading to you!
edited to add: my tutorial for the ten cards with Botanical Prints Product Medley is now ready! You can get it by clicking the buy it now button below.
Product List
by Jackie Bultje | Dec 23, 2019 | Christmas, Dashing Deer, embossing |
Hello stampers! How happy was I to discover more happy mail! Saturday I found a familiar looking Stampin’Up! envelope postmarked from Richmond, Virginia with a lovely poinsettia stamp. Thanks to Connie Updegraff for this lovely card using Dashing Deer to make this dashing copper deer. Would you like to see her beautiful work?
Connie’s Card
Connie’s card is so classy! She started with a very vanilla base and then added an embossed very vanilla layer with a small copper border at the bottom of it and some narrow copper edged ribbon around the main embossed panel. The ribbon is from the retired tea room combo ribbon and you are in luck, it is on the clearance rack right now for a super deal! You can check it out here. Prancing or dashing above it all is a beautiful copper deer with ornate antlers. This copper deer comes from the Detailed Deer Dies. The sentiment is from the coordinating stamp set Dashing Deer. This reminds me of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen. Are you in the Christmas mood too?
The Supplies
I don’t have my annual catalog with me here in Holland so I had to use my own online store to find the name of certain products. I used the search box to help me, I just typed in “deer” and I found everything I needed. Good to know right?
Alternate Card from the Catalog
Sometimes we forget that the catalog is also an idea book and that there are literally tons of great ideas in there, not just for copying a card exactly but for perhaps finding a cool layout design or colour combination. The catalog has changed and improved in that it sometimes offers instructions for a cool technique.
I like the distressed look of this card. The edges of the red cardstock was frayed using the edge of a scissors, the green stamped paper was spritzed with water, scrunched up and then after it dried it was sanded a bit to make it look aged. I love how the inside saying was used as a background detail behind the deer. Do you see how the Corrugated embossing folder was used with the crumb cake cardstock? The little flower on the deer is also from a framelit in the Detailed Deer collection.
Thank You!
Thank you so much Connie for your lovely card. I know that you also have Dutch roots and it was so nice to read your greeting in the inside of the card in Dutch. Gerard and I are really feeling the love. I have discovered and have been told by several Dutch people that they do NOT use the province in their mailing address, so if you are planning to participate in the happy mail contest, you do not need to include Zuid-Holland. So strange for a Canadian to hear!!
Thanks also for stopping by today, I love reading your comments and receiving your messages and emails and of course happy mail is the very best of all. Two more days till Christmas. I do hope to have a short live video for you tomorrow at 9am EST or 3pm in the Netherlands. On a personal note I just pulled some shortbread cookies out of the oven but they were not up to par. They had spread together so I had to cut them apart. Not sure if it is the cookie sheet or if my rather primitive measuring equipment led to less accurate results. I hope the second batch is better. The good news is that there is also a quark taart in the fridge, that one looked like it turned out okay. I also know of a few great bakeries in the vicinity if I need a backup plan!!!
Product List
Tea Room Ribbon Combo Pack
[146893]
$11.00
by Jackie Bultje | Dec 20, 2019 | bees, Botanical Prints Product Medley, Framelits, tone on tone stamping |
Hello stampers! Happy Friday to you. Have you noticed the buzz about bees? Lately bees have been very popular and also a bit controversial. People are worried about the environment and the dwindling bee population. One of the happy results about that is that there are a lot of backyard beekeepers. My niece Jennifer and her husband Joash are also novice beekeepers. Check out their Facebook page, they live one street over from me! Today I am also incorporating bees into my cards and you will see how adorable they are!
Copper Bees
Have you seen the pretty copper bees that are included in the Botanical Prints Product Medley? They are so pretty and they really make such a beautiful accent on a card. I am happy that so many are included in this product medley, that way I don’t have to hoard them. Every time I create with them I look forward to sharing them with everyone who is coming to my winter retreat in beautiful Muskoka. How does relaxing in a cozy cabin with a woodstove sound to you? Making cards, eating warm biscuits fresh from the oven with homemade raspberry preserves and whipping cream? Hot chocolate and a movie? Skating in the woods?
Oops. I got distracted! I am supposed to be talking about bees! Would you like to see the card?
The Card
I had started making this card during my Facebook live on Tuesday where I showed you how I had cut out the two triangle framelits side by side in the mossy meadow piece. This left a very narrow strip between the two openings. I decided to utilize that and filled the space with two crushed curry detailed triangles.
Unfortunately I had taken no embossing folders with me but I wanted to add interest to the background. What to do? Why, tone on tone stamping of course. This look reminds me of toile. I used the same technique on the crushed curry strip on the bottom and added some foliage to the sentiment to add depth and richness to the card. My original card had only one bee, but I decided to live lavishly and add three bees to my card. The recipient will hopefully feel the love!
Up Close and Personal
Since I have been crowing about these bees, I thought I should give you a nice closeup shot so you can see how pretty they are. I am really loving how all the elements from the Botanical Prints Product Medley work together. I find that playing extensively with one group of products really unleashes your creativity. That is one thing that my presentation at #OnStage2019 taught me.
Just so you know, there are 12 copper bees in the Botanical Prints Product Medley. I am getting excited for the pdf I am going to make with all the beautiful cards you can make with this medley. I hope to get it done before Christmas. Here’s hoping!! It is good to set goals. I think I will make a card using the free bee paper that you can get during saleabration, that can be a part of my goal.
Travel Notes
I thought you might enjoy a few personal notes on my time in Holland. You can see lots more pictures on my Instagram account and on my Pampered Stamper Facebook page but I thought I would share a little here as well. You may know that my boyfriend Gerard is an amaryllis grower. He works all year tending the bulbs and fighting the bugs and it all comes to a climax in December when the bulk of his flowers are sold on the flower auctions in Holland. It is quite an amazing thing to witness and be a part of.
I have helped stack the boxes of cut flowers on the carts that are to be picked up by the trucker and taken to the auction. Several nights it was after midnight before we were done! I also stapled identification tags on the flower boxes and marked the different batches. It felt good to contribute in a practical way other than emotional support. All his hard work is then dependent on supply and demand and the market prices. Almost a million stems are produced in his greenhouses. We were very thankful that the last few days finally had great prices. That sure makes it easier to get up early in the morning and go to work.
Last night we were finally able to get away for a bit of together time and we headed to den Haag to the Royal Winter Fair which is their Christmas Market. It was so magical. I loved all the live music, a gospel choir, an old fashioned caroling group dressed up in olde English garb and a small choir singing in German. There were also lots of treats to sample and of course hot mulled wine and pretty lights and baubles everywhere. The city itself is also stunning. Here are a few photos. I also forgot to tell you that den Haag is The Hague in English. If you are interested in learning more about this city of international peace, here is a link for you!
Thanks!
Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you are enjoying the days leading up to Christmas as well. If you have had loss in your life, my prayers are with you and I hope that you will be surrounded with people who love and support you. Never forget that you are loved with an everlasting love by the One who made you and knows you by name.
Product List
by Jackie Bultje | Dec 19, 2019 | Christmas, Happy Mail in Holland |
Hello stampers! It was a very exciting afternoon at Bloemenlaan 6, the first happy mail in Holland has arrived! Actually it was the second one, the first was a Christmas photo card from my daughter Stefanie and her family. However, the first official happy mail for the contest arrived today and I was so so happy to open it up. Would you like to see it too?
Barb Gourlay’s Card
Barb Gourlay from Chatham, Ontario is the artist who made this card. I am so touched with how much thought went into making this card so personal. Where do I start? The obvious ones are the windmill stamp which perfectly suits my location. Detail number two is the little airplane on the banner. The third personal touch might be more subtle and that is the colour scheme. Barb chose blue and white because that is reminiscent of the famous Delft Blau which is the gorgeous blue and white pottery that Delft is known for. What you might not know is that Barb is also on my Beyond Pampered team in my second downline. She is a positive stamper who loves to share new things with me including fancy fold techniques. This one is called a side panel fold and you can find the instructions for this fold here.
Here is a look at one of the panels. I just love all the cute details, don’t you?
Happy Mail Contest
Thanks so much for stopping by, so nice to connect with people all around the world through a blog. It is so much easier being away from home when you can still connect with “your people” everywhere. This happy mail contest is just one more way to make that connection even sweeter. I hope you will consider joining in too! My mailing address is: Jackie Bultje c/o Gerard van der Sar, Bloemenlaan 6, 2691 JC ‘s-Gravenzande, Zuid-Holland, the Netherlands. Everyone who sends me a card will be entered into a contest to win either the Painted Labels dies or the Poppy Moments dies from the new mini catalog.
Clearance Rack
Just in case you missed the announcement the other day, a LOT of amazing things have been added to the clearance rack. The prices are really great too, so don’t miss out. The savings make it worth the splurge to order online and have it sent straight to your door. Here is the link to do that. If you prefer me to order it for you, I can do that as well, just send me a message.
Product List
