First BIA Logbook

I got a Bind it All for Christmas!  I was so busy yesterday that I was not able to play with it.  Then the kitchen table was full of the kids presents from the grandmas on Christmas Eve that I had to put everything away.

I made one book this morning and I only messed up a little bit.  I made the covers bigger than the pages and I ended up with one more hole on the covers than I had on the pages.  So I had to cut new pages but that wasn't a big deal.  I will probably reuse the smaller ones later.

Thank you obnoxious, I mean, noxer hubby :P

Secret Santa

Check out this great stamp we got from our Secret Santa.  Thank you turkey feathers :)

Happy Holidays

This card is "For unto us a child is born..."  I made it for the Happy Holidays 2012 tracker.  I stamped the image, embossed it, water colored it, and then added ink to the edges.  Originally I was going to leave the blanket white but the princess insisted that I make it blue.  I posted it on Facebook but my friends were split.  So I posted it on the LTC fb page and almost everyone said blue.  I really like this card :)

Super Mario Bros

These cards were made by my sons for the Super Mario Bros tracker.  The boys carved the stamps and colored the cards and I put them together.  Lego Clone Trooper made the green one, Koopa and R2-D2 made the red one, Spiny.

My boys are starting to really get excited about making LTCs.  They have also made cards for the Kids Only LTC Swap and they are collecting their cards in a binder.  I'm glad that this is a hobby that we can all do and enjoy.

Christmas Carols

We just started making LTCs earlier this year and it seems that we made a ton of Christmas ones.  Maybe it is because our last name is Christmas.  

These cards were all made for the Christmas Carols tracker.

This card is "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch".  I carved the stamp for Daddy's Favorite Princess and she painted it with watercolors.  She loves to make cards.  

 I made this card for my mom, BPWigand & Family.  It goes with the song Christmas Cookies by George Strait.  She loves that song and making sugar cookies with the grandkids at Christmas.  There are actually three different versions of this card.  I also sent the stamps of to an event where they wanted cookies for Santa.  

Finally this is the card that I made for myself, "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".  At our zoo here in Evansville we had the worlds oldest hippo and she died a few months ago just before her 61st birthday.  I made a stamp and planted it in the park next to the zoo in her honor.  The box got a blue diamond and I liked the stamp so much that I decided to use it for this LTC swap.
I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas YouTube video

Poinsettia Day

I made this card, Poinsettia Day, for the Holidays of December tracker.  For the flower I used shaving cream and red food coloring on white card stock   You spray the shaving cream on a cookie sheet, drop the food coloring on, smear it around just a little, and then lay your paper on and press.  Scrape off the extra shaving cream and let the paper dry.  Then I stamped the paper, embossed, and cut it out.  I used the same stamp on the background because the leafs are similar to the flower.  For the yellow circles in the middle I used a pencil eraser for a stamp.

My Favorite TV Show

I recently got my cards back from the "My Favorite TV Show" tracker.  When I signed up I knew immediately that I wanted to make a card for the show Castle.

The card at the bottom was my original idea but the stamp is 4 separate pieces and I knew that it would take forever to line it up and stamp it.  So I went back to the drawing board and made the card at the top.  You can't see it in the picture but I went around the edge with a black ink pad.

I received some interesting cards from the swap.  Twelve people participated and 5 of the shows I had never seen.

Christmas CLUE

We are in the Christmas CLUE 2012 tracker.  I have made 3 cards for the game.  The Princess loves the Grinch so that card it hers.  It is the second Grinch that I have carved this year.  The first one was a positive carve that we used for the Christmas Carols tracker.  That stamp was almost to big for the card so I carved a smaller negative one.  I'm still experimenting with carving techniques.  I feel that I often remove too much material.

The middle one is a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree to be used as a weapon in the game.  I colored the stamp with markers except for the ornament.  I used an ink pad on the ornament and embossed it.  I also added a piece of felt for the blanket and drew over the pine needles with a fine Sharpie to make them stand out.

The card on the right is Midnight Mass, a location for the game.  It was just stamped.  Nothing fancy there.  I think it could use a little something just not sure what.  I am really looking forward to getting everyone's cards and playing the game.

Bumper Stickers

Every election year my husband covers my van with political bumper stickers.  I have been trying to think of a way to stop him for a little while now.  I saw some Star Wars stickers similar to this one day and started looking for them online.  I got these at www.thinkgeek.com and I love them.  You get 18 characters so the kids could easily pick who they wanted.

Earlier this year we went looking for a new letterbox.  I pulled up at a back parking lot on a college campus and there were several other cars there.  I immediately wondered if these cars belonged to other boxers.  We were trying to be "First Finders" and thought someone may have beat us to the box.  Well, the cars did not belong to other letterboxes because we were first and others didn't make it to the box until the next day.  I decided then that I needed a letterboxing bumper sticker.

Now that the election is over I have pulled all my husbands stickers and added my own.  Hopefully this will detour him from covering my van with stickers.

Happy Cake Day!

Today is our second letterboxing anniversary!  We got two boxes, finished some LTCs, and spent the evening trick-or-treating.  We have had a great second year.  We attended our first events, co-hosted an event, started LTCs, and found our 200th box.  Woo hoo!

Stamp Shirt

Earlier this month someone posted on Atlas Quest that Wal Mart had a shirt out for Halloween that had a stamped image of an owl on it.  I really didn't think much of it at first but last week I was at Wal Mart and I decided to look for it.  I was very surprised to see that the image was the same one I had carved and planted during Spring Break.  I got the shirt, went to my box, and took my picture wearing the shirt with the stamp.  I'm sure my husband and kids really think I'm nuts now!

Fantastic Fall Foliage

We picked up a Hitchhiker and a Flea while we were letterboxing in Cannelton a few weeks ago.  I didn't want to hold onto them too long so I decided to bring them to the University of Southern Indiana. USI has about a dozen boxes that are very popular. I thought that by taking them out there that they would be picked up and passed along quickly.

It is a wonderful time to be out letterboxing in Indiana.  The temp this week has been in the 80s and the leaves are beautiful.

The Princess was a little fussy but the baby is always happy to be out and about.  He did get upset when I slipped and brushed him against a tree with thorns.  I didn't take a look at it until we got back to the car; the poor guy had a scratch all the way down his arm :(  I'll have to be more careful when I'm hauling him around on my back.

Something New For Christmas??

I am in the "Something New For Christmas" LTC tracker.  I had an idea that I would carve a simple nativity silhouette and then my "something new" would be a fancy background.  The tracker had a link to a blog with  more than 50 background techniques; should be easy to find something I could do, right?

My favorite idea was covering your paper with torn masking tape, inking the tape, and then stamping the image on the taped card.  One problem I had was that the ink on the tape would not dry.  I was stamping the ink pad directly onto the card.  After a while I started putting the ink on the card with a makeup sponge.  This helped the ink to dry but the color was much lighter than I wanted.  Also, the stamp looked bad because of the uneven card surface.

Then I tried several different ink & salt techniques.  I tried ink & salt on card stock and ink & salt on photo paper.  I bought several kinds of inks and even made my own alcohol inks (I now have blue hands).  I like the photo paper look but I was afraid that that was the background that everyone was going to use.  I had discussed my tape issues on Facebook and others said what techniques they were using for the swap.


I went back to the background blog and found another to try.  You simply put rubber bands on a jar, roll it through your embossing ink pad, roll it on the paper, add embossing powder, and heat set.  Then you ink up the card with ink pads, spray inks, etc.  I really liked this one too but not for the stamp I had carved.  I may have liked it better if I would have used a colored embossing powder instead of clear.



Again I went to the internet searching for ATC's and ATC backgrounds.  I watched a few videos on YouTube and decided to try bubble paper.  I didn't think it would work for this project but wanted to give it a try.  I played around with it and this is the background technique that I have finally settled on!  I used store bought bubbles, food coloring, and photo paper.

I also tried pigment inks and dye inks on this card.  Sometimes the pigment ink didn't want to stick to the card.  And sometimes that effect looked nice but sometimes it didn't.  I didn't really like the dye ink look because it was to light.  So the cards I sent off are a mix of inks.  I can't wait to see what everyone else has done for this swap :)

Sandstones of Time Event

We had a great time letterboxing at the Sandstones of Time event yesterday in Cannelton, In.  The weather was nice and the changing leaves were beautiful.  Cannelton was celebrating their 175 Anniversary and had a festival on one of its main streets downtown.  There was food, crafts, activities for the kids, bands, etc.  When we were done finding the event boxes we looked for other boxes close by.

This is the Indiana Cotton Mill.  It is the first stop on the LB tour.  It was built in 1849 and was in use until 1954.

Lil Ewok, Daddy's Favorite Princess, and Lego Clone Trooper panning for gold.

This is the old courthouse now a museum.  In the background you can see St Michael's Church.  Both of these locations were on the LB tour of historic Cannelton.

Found a camouflage frog while boxing. 

Celtic Cross in Cannelton.  This is one of the boxes that we got after the  LB event.  Beautiful location and cross.  They are carving another cross just up the road.  

Bookworm

My boys love to carve stamps.  This stamp was made by Lego Clone Trooper (age 10).  I made the cards for the Holidays of November swap (Young Reader's Day).  We are hoping to get permission to plant the stamp in a local library.  I believe that this card will be in the next issue of the LetterPost.

Fall Festival 2012

My Fall Festival 2012 boxes only had three finders. I was very disappointed that I had made three stamps and so few people showed up.  It was cold and it rained several days so maybe that kept people away.  I wish we had more active boxers here in town :(

Phineas and Ferb

We recently got back our LTCs from the Phineas and Ferb swap.  We made three cards for the swap.  The Princess wanted to make Candace but she is to young to carve.  I made the stamp and she decorated the cards.

R2-D2 really likes carving and seems to be better at it than Lego Clone Trooper.  R2-D2 made the Agent P & Doofenshmirtz.  He also decorated the cards.

Lego Clone Trooper picked the image for the tidal wave card but it was to hard for him to carve.  It was almost more than I could handle.  I started coloring the cards myself but about half way through the boys wanted to set up an assembly line.  So, both of the boys helped color that card.

I plan on planting these stamps in the wild but I thought there was something missing.  Then I made the logo stamp to finish the set.  I only made five cards of it.  I will use three for first finder gifts and use the others for different swaps.

Logo stamp
carved & colored by christmas6

Driving your sister insane
carved by christmas6 & painted by The Princess

Curse you, Perry the Platypus
carved & colored by R2-D2

Surfing tidal waves
carved & mostly colored by christmas6 

Boxing in Mt Vernon

Posey Co courthouse-Mt Vernon, In

Today was a beautiful day.  I thought there was a craft show in town but I got the dates wrong and it was last weekend :(

So we did the next best thing, letterboxing.  Some boxers had planted a four part series in the town next to us (Mt Vernon) and we went to get them.  It was a very nice series with some history in downtown.

Hovey Lake-Mt. Vernon, In

There were also some older boxes at Hovey Lake which is southwest of Mt. Vernon.  The boxes all said that they were active but I didn't think that they were there.  The entire area was under water two years ago when the Ohio River flooded.

The last people to find the boxes were there in 2009.  I searched all around with no luck.  Also, the planter no longer boxes so she is no help.

Oh well, we found 4 of the 7 letterboxes that we looked for today.  And we got ice cream :)

Peace Love and Harmonie SUCCESS!

Our letterboxing event was Saturday at Harmonie State Park.  We had a great time!  We had 38 people sign up from 3 states!  When I first thought about having an event I imagined a picnic with a dozen people from Evansville.  I never guessed people would come from all around.  The other hosts are already talking about a weekend event in the spring.
The only complaint/suggestion that we got about the event was that people didn't have enough time to get all the boxes.  I was really surprised at how many table top boxes were sent in.  It will probably take me a few hours to log all the event boxes, exchanges, PTs, table tops, trail boxes, night boxes, cooties, fleas, etc.
My family camped at the state park before and after the event.  One of the things I liked best about the weekend was exchanging at the campground.  It was more laid back than the event.  That is probably what I will look forward to the most if we do a camp out next time.

Stamping at the shelter house 9/22/12

My boys stamping.  Lego Clone Trooper (in blue) had a great time.  He got more exchanges and table tops than I did.  He is already looking forward to another event.

The Princess and my nieces stamping table tops. 

This is the cemetery that we planted several boxes at.

BPWigand and Family, R2-D2, and Daddy's Favorite Princess stamping a pirate series. 

Fall Festival Stamps

The 91st annual West Side Nut Club Fall Festival will begin on October 1st.  This is the second largest street festival in the country.  4 blocks of West Franklin St will be lined with 136 food booths.  The booths are non-profit or not-for-profit groups from all over the area.  They believe that over 200,000 people visit the festival each year.  

My husband has been helping his friend make a food booth for the group Restoring Our Heritage.  They have been working late nights and I decided to make a letterbox to attach to it.  This is their first year to have a booth.  The Nut Club recently bought a parking lot and are letting more groups set up booths there. http://www.restoringourheritage.com/index.htm

Another booth in the same area is The Gathering Church.  The pastor was our youth pastor when we were in high school.  A few years back he felt led to start his own church.  This is also their first year to have a booth at the festival. http://www.thegatheringevansville.com/

I will post the clues to these boxes on the first day of the Fall Festival.  Here is a  Munchie Map of all the food available:
http://www.nutclub.org/images/stories/pdfs/2012_munchie_map.pdf. 

Event Planting

I have been very busy lately getting ready for our event.  I believe I said that I have never been to a big event before so I am both nervous and excited.  But the event is being put on by a group of us and I really feel like I am not doing much.  Oh well.

I made eight trail boxes for the event (I posted some of them earlier).  Three will be at a cemetery and five around a trail at the campground.  I feel sorry for the Princess because she has had to walk the cemetery trail three times now.  We went once to check it out & look for hiding spots, again to plant the boxes, and lastly to put the clues in the first box for the bonus.  It is a flat mile but she is staring to complain that she doesn't like letterboxing.

Then I have five fall stamps I will leave there for the  fall.  That trail is also a mile and I feel that that is too many stamps to stay there forever.

My HIPS boxes are ready to go and I have been collecting items for the raffle.  I am a little concerned that we will have to many raffle items.  One of the others putting on the event had a big basket of stuff when we met a few weeks ago.  Most of it she didn't even get out for me to see.

I have been thinking about making a "First Finder" LTC.  I wanted the background to be a map and I really struggled to find map scrapbook paper.  I was looking for a road map but this is good enough.  They are being released for the first time in my event trail boxes.

My 1st LTC

This is my very first LTC!  I made it in June for the "I Missed the Swapping at Rock the Mall" tracker.  A Girl Scout letterboxer friend suggested that I try an LTC swap.  This is just a stamped image that has been embossed.  I love embossing :)

I have carved this stamp 3 times.  The first time it went missing.  I believe it was thrown away when someone was cleaning up from a storm.  Then two Girl Scouts posted that they were looking for scout stamps to use while celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts.  So I carved it again and again and sent them on their merry way.  I believe one went to New England and the other to Missouri.

Garden of the Gods, Ill

Yesterday we had a great time letterboxing at the Garden of the Gods & Pounds Hollow in southeast Illinois.  It had been 5 years since we were there last and big boys didn't really remember much about it.  But since dad did not come I would not let them climb around as much as they would have liked.     

R2-D2, Lego Clone Trooper and the Princess climbing at Garden of the Gods.  We found 1 of the 2 boxes here.

Lil Ewok waiting for the big kids to get a box at Pounds Hollow.  They climbed a dry waterfall and couldn't find it so mom had to go look.  

 Cool rocks on the trail at Pounds Hollow.

This is box 3 of 4 at fat mans squeeze.  We had no problems finding the first 3 but then the clues got funny and we didn't know where to go for the last one.  We looked around for a bit but we were so tired that we just turned around and went back the way we came.  So, we found 4 of the 6 boxes we went looking for :)

UGH!

We had a frustrating LB experience yesterday.  Someone posted on AQ that they would be traveling across the country and they wanted to plant letterboxes as they went.  That sounded fun and I had a stamp idea, so I carved it up and sent it to them.  A few months later I got a message that they had planted my stamp.  The box was also listed on my list of new boxes in the area.  I guess they did that on purpose so I could do maintenance.

The box was planted 30-40 minutes from my house.  So I run up to get it on the first day and can't find it.  I send them an email and get no response.  Another local boxer goes up the same day and does eventually find it.  She emails the planters and they change the clues.  So I go up again to get it and have no problems finding it this time.  I stamped everything and was putting everything back in the pouch and the top rips off!  The planters used a sandwich bag and took the tape up to just under the zipper.

I don't carry extra pouches/boxes.  I have extra logbooks & zip bags, several sig stamps, 4 logbooks, pens, tons of ink, gloves, tongs, clipboard, compass, plastic shopping bags, and PTs.   I don't have room for boxes/pouches.  That means I have to come back again.  If this had been a month ago I would just say, "I'll get to it when I get to it."  But they were forecasting that the rain from Hurricane Isaac was supposed to reach us tonight.  They are calling for 2-4 inches.  So we went back today and replaced the pouch.  I hope I don't have to go back for quite a while.

Cemetery Boxes

Here are the stamps that my boys have carved for our event.  My boys LOVE to carve stamps :)  There is a small (2 graves) cemetery at the state park and we want to put some boxes there.  I think I will use the one I carved of grave stones to be a traditional box and make both of these bonus boxes.

Carving Like Crazy

A small group of us are hosting a LB event next month.  It is on the first day of fall so I am carving several fall themed stamps.  This first pic is some that I have so far.  The pumpkin one is recycled from the Autumn Awe LTC swap.  I am working on a hayride for this series too.  These will be going on a trail around the campground.  I am also working on some stamps to go in a small cemetery in the park.  Well, I have made one and my boys are each going to make one.

I have made 4 Hidden In Plain Sight (HIPS) boxes.  The name of our event is Peace Love and Harmonie but I changed it for these stamps (Peace Love and Letterbox).  The other HIPS box is in a little basket.


That is it for now.  I better get back to carving, making pouches, and whatnot.