stencils Archives - The Pampered Stamper

This Is Love

by Jackie Bultje | May 26, 2021 | Paper Pumpkin, stencils | 8 comments

Hello stampers and happy Wednesday to you. Today’s post will not be about cards. I came across a photo I took of my parents and I called it This Is Love. When I look at this photo love is what I see. At first I was going to make a Facebook post about it, but then I thought, no, this deserves a blog post!!

This Is Love

My parents, Kees and Rina are now 94 and 89. When they married with their Dutch names, Cornelis and Arendje they did not expect that they would be given 63 years together. They have quite the story and they have weathered so much together. Through it all there has been this incredible love between them.

This Picture Says so Much

What do I see when I look at this picture? I see two grey heads bent together in intimacy. I see the one caring for the other when it was often the other way around. In the bottom left corner I see the old “beschuit” tin that has been with them their entire marriage I think. I see bacon and eggs on Pap’s plate. He has always loved this for breakfast so we have now taken to making it every morning to help him keep his weight on.

Mom used to get up at 5:30 every morning to make bacon and eggs for us before we went out to milk the cows. After the table was set and breakfast made, Pap would wake us all up and Mom would go back to bed. It was the one thing that made getting up early easier.

Against All Odds

My Opa was giving up on the idea that his daughter would ever marry! Apparently she was quite fussy. The bar was high! So high that Opa said to her, you better go the local carpenter and get a husband made to your specifications. Pap was also a very eligible bachelor traveling the seas to work in Canada.

Through two disasters, the flooding of their island province by the Germans in World War 2 and then the flood of 1953, my parents’ families met as the Boot family had to take refuge in my Mom’s environs. The families met at the local church on Sunday. When Pap went to Canada he wrote letters to Mom’s family. One time Mom was home sick so she volunteered to write that family letter back to Pap. That is how their letter writing began!

When they married a year or more later she was 26 and he was 31. Their honeymoon was a cruise ship from Rotterdam to Halifax. After that it was a long, uncomfortable train ride to Manitoba. Pap was quiet. He was feeling the pressure of providing for his new wife and they didn’t even have a house waiting for them!! Mom was also getting a little quiet. Canada was so vast!! She was getting further and further away from her family whom she thought she would never see again.

I Could Write a Book

I could write a book about their life. Suffice it to say they have inspired me. It is through them that I have a deep and abiding faith, the greatest gift of all. Their work ethic and the joy they found in the everyday has also been the foundation of my love for my work. I made this simple card last night using the March Paper Pumpkin. Our team had a challenge to use stencils. This card is for my parents who have now had the blessing to travel from coast to coast in their adopted country.

Paper Pumpkin

Paper Pumpkin is a craft kit subscription that is very flexible. It works out to about $30 a month and you get a stamp set, a mini ink pad and all the supplies to make quite a few cards. Usually 8 but sometimes 12. You can skip a month any time you wish or you can cancel your subscription. There is so much inspiration for these kits online so the creative options are many! If you are interested you can subscribe through me here.