Every company has a story of how it started. or where they started, or even the struggles they went through to get to the top, but I daresay there is no story quite like Heartfelt Creations. A leading rubber stamp maker in the scrapbooking industry that came from the farms of Northern Indiana and is now a famous company for crafters around the world. Since the summer of 1995, President Linda Bontrager took her first stamp and went from Amish to creative and never looked back. Now, 10 years later, Heartfelt Creations is one of the leading providers of quality rubber stamps with innovative and cutting-edge designs. They inspire, make you dream and bring out the creative genius in everyone. But how did this all start with an Amish lady on a farm?
The company
The summer of ’95 is when Linda had her first encounter with a stamp and the rest is history. Living on a farm and growing up Amish, Linda wasn’t taught to think outside the box or explore creative imagination until a short, simple demonstration of how a stamp worked for her children would change that forever. As he said in his own words, “I will never forget the day I picked up a stamp for the first time. I had bought a little set of stamps for my kids and was showing them how to use it. I remember picking up the stamp, inking it and pressing it onto paper, when I lifted the stamp and saw the image, it was that AHH HA moment. It’s one of those moments in life where you realize right now that you’ve discovered something amazing, and that would shape the course of your future.” By the winter of 1997, she had collected a box full of stamps and started her family business in her new home on an 80-acre farm. In a way you could say that it was a symbol of starting a “new” life and leaving the old one behind. In any sense, the stamping journey began for Heartfelt Creations.
seals
Heartfelt Creations currently offers four types of stamps: mounted, unmounted, pre-cut, and rubber sheets. Wood-mounted images are deeply etched rubber with 1/8-inch foam, mounted on hard white maple, black indexed, and lacquered. Disassembled it would be the image of the stamp itself, but without foam. The precuts must be used with the acrylic block. They are cut out and have the EZ Mount foam for the acrylic block. Then lastly, the rubber sheets, which are typically 8.5 x 11 inches, unless available with wood mounting foam or the EZ mounting foam for acrylic block. There is also a newer type of product making headlines. They are the most popular line of stamps to match Spellbinder’s exclusive dies. This process of combining the stamp with the die results in a detailed image on your die, allowing you to create stamped dimension without using scissors. Spellbinders dies with matching rubber stamps from Heartfelt Creations give you a blast of 3D possibilities and add depth to any project.
As stated in the article introduction, innovative and cutting edge designs is what makes these rubber stamps highly desirable for any craft lover. A small sincere family from Indiana and an incredible imagination for creation is what keeps this company strong. A simple thought in 1995 to a passion for design in 1997 to a total change of lifestyle and risk in 2004 really defines that there was a time for every season and a rhyme for every reason. And now, from 2007 to the present day, Heartfelt Creations has its retail store in Nappanee, Indiana and continues to express its stamps at all craft fairs and scrapbooking. What was once a simple idea on an Amish farm has now made history as a creative legend and will live on for years to come for the Bontrager family.