Sharing Creativity
Hello stampers and happy Monday to you. Today I am talking about sharing creativity. In this blog post I will be sharing creativity from my Happy Mail in Holland contributors. All three are Dutch artists! One of them is my cousin Corien (actually she is married to my cousin Chris) and I am going to start with her card.
Corien’s Card
Corien is the kind of artist that I would love to be. She paints!! When I received her lovely watercoloured Christmas card, I had no idea that it was part of a bigger whole. She told me that later and I thought it was a genius idea. It is so wonderful to be inspired by the creativity of others! First I will show you her card, then I will share the bigger watercolour painting, known here as an “aquarelle”.
I love the calming natural colours of Corien’s card, don’t you? Now here is the much bigger painting that she cut up into cards. What a novel idea! I’m sort of hoping that she made two of these so. that there is still one original large painting hanging on the wall somewhere.
I love the combination of styles here. My eyes see the old world manger scene that reminds me of paintings throughout the centuries combined with the modern feel of the ornaments and the straight lines of the squares. Wow, wow, wow!! Corien, you are incredible. Thank you for sharing your gift of art with us. Isn’t sharing creativity just the best?
Corien lives in Maasluis, the Netherlands which is quite close to where Gerard lives. I love that because that means we can see each other regularly. Chris and Corien are beautiful souls and among my favourite people.
Carla van der Meé’s Card
Carla comes from Drachten, the Netherlands (I’m going to have to look that up!) Her lovely card combines the Arctic Bears stamp set with Whimsical Trees. I love her choice of colours (mossy meadow, soft succulent and old olive) as well as the layout of her elements. Very clever to stamp the saying at an angle as well. It’s catchy and it also means you don’t have to stress out about getting it perfectly straight. That can be especially tricky with small sayings.
Carla’s card measures 4 3/4″ square. Thanks for sending me this beautiful card!
Drachten is located in the northern part of the Netherlands and is the second largest city in the province of Friesland. I think I would love to go to this museum to learn more about the local history, especially the harvesting of peat, as this was a job that my father did in Canada before he bought his farm.
Bianca Rebel’s Card
The last card that I am sharing today comes from Bianca Rebel who lives in the beautiful city of Dordrecht. Bianca’s card is clean and simple and I love how she used a corner rounder on the two opposite corners of her card. The cardstock is balmy blue from Stampin’Up! but the stamp is what I affectionately call “contraband”. Bianca tells me that it is from Alexandra Renke.
It was so nice to receive your happy mail Bianca, thank you!! If you want to see another beautiful card that Bianca made as well as read a little bit more about Dordrecht, check out this blog post from two years ago.
Happy New Year from Holland
I thought I would close this post with a photo of my new amaryllis bouquet. Gerard brought in three new ones to replace the Christmas ones. He knows how much I love the salmon coloured ones. The name of this variety is called Desire. Gerard just has a few of these rogues growing in the greenhouse, it is not a variety that he sells. They are just for me!!
By picking these particular flowers and arranging them just so, Gerard also shared his creativity with me and it just makes me so happy.
They look so nice and fresh inside the house and also from outside. The other day we were driving away and I looked back and saw these flowers and I thought, I need to take a picture of these from outside. Lovely!!!
Gerard and I wish you a very Happy New Year. Thanks for joining me today. Just a gentle reminder that today is the LAST day to order from the holiday catalog. Tomorrow saleabration begins!! Have a super day.
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