399 :'(

Looking down at Cannelton, In

I have been trying to log my 400th traditional find by the end of 2013.  A few weeks ago I went out looking for boxes that I had already attempted and found a few.  I needed 11 more to get 400.  So the weather today was supposed to be nice and I set off to find some letterboxes.

I printed off 15 clues and headed off to Perry County.  The first box was listed at Cannelton, In but it was actually in Kentucky looking down on Canntelton.  I am glad that I got this box in the winter when there were no leaves on the trees.  The view of the river was beautiful.  You could see barges, bridges, and a lock & dam. The stamp was an image of a steam boat.

High Cross near Celtic Cross

The second box of the day I had stopped and looked for three times before.  But someone said they found it so I was going to look again.  But the gates were locked.  There was a sign with the "Winter Hours" but it was closed.

From there I went to check on a box I had found before.  At our event in October some ladies said that they couldn't find it.  I stopped to check and it was alive and well.  It was at the Celtic Cross.  Here is a pic of the new cross in the area.

Now I  was off to Derby.  This is an area that I have never been to.  My noxer husband is a state highway engineer and he acted like he knew the area well.  I wish he would have been there.  I think I got almost to Derby and had to turn around due to high water.

High water :(

This wasn't a huge deal I just ended up finding my boxes in a different order.  I went to 2 small cemeteries.  One of the boxes had to do with a trapeze artist who was murdered in the area.  The second was tricky to find because they tell you to look for names on stones that can only be seen from the back sides.  Found a geocache and then found the letterbox.

Nice lake I found while looking for a box

Next was a box at a park in the Hoosier National Forest.  The gate was closed and I ended up walking quite away.  But the stamp was nice and like I said the weather was good too :)

From there I went looking for another box that I looked for once before.  It was at a covered bridge in Spencer County.  You were supposed to look thru a pile of rock to find the box.  All the rocks look the same to me but I finally did find it.  The stamp was a great carving of the bridge but the box was in bad shape from being smashed by the rock.  And the log was wet.

Back at Huffington Mill 

From here I went up to the Spencer County Memorial Forest.  I had a found a box here before but another one had been recently planted there.  There were some guys using the shooting range but they didn't seem to pay much attention to me.  So I did my thing and headed back to Warrick County.

Back in Newburgh I found two dumpster boxes that were close together.  One was at the humane society and the other at a park.  It was starting to get dark so I was moving fast to try to reach my goal of 400.  I tried another box in Newburgh (that I thought had a bonus) but I couldn't find it.

I cross the county line back in to Vanderburgh were I belong and grab a box planted near the YMCA and rush to a steak house for a quick drive by.  The steak house had recently closed and I couldn't find the box.  I was at 398 with one clue left.  I knew that I would not reach my goal of 400.  I almost went strait home.

My last box of the day as at a local university.  It was an easy box to find but I went home disappointed.   I printed off 15 clues, looked for 13 (counting the locked fence), and found 10.  I came up with 399, just one short of 400.

Secret Santa

I got my Secret Santa stamp today.  It is a cute little frog from Pink Cookie.  Since it is tiny I will probably send it off as a HH or cootie.  Thanks :)
Merry Christmas!

LTC Spirit

Today was a great mail day.  One of the things I got were the cards from the "LTC Spirit" swap.  My card was inspired by a Christmas card that I sent out a few years ago.

I really like the Christmas card and tried to remake it.  My LTC had 3 stamps; feet on the front, hand on the inside, and blood in the hand.

I embossed the blood in the hand and rubbed some ink around the edge of the card.  I felt like the card needed something else but I couldn't decide what :/

LTC Calendar

I participated in the "LTC Desk Calendar 2014" swap.  Each person made a card for one month of the year.  Then nosox bound then and we got a really cool calender.

I picked December of course.  I choose my image and worked on the stamp for a few days.  Then one afternoon I walk in to find Lil Ewok (almost 2) stabbing my stamp with a gauge :(  I had to emboss the image to save it.

I think it turned out okay but I probably won't be able to use the stamp again.

Christmas Cards LTC

The kids and I just got our cards back from the "Christmas Cards 2013" LTC swap.  We got some really great cards back.

I made the church card.  This is a stamp that I had recycled from the "Christmas Clue" game last year.

Lego Clone Trooper (11) made the presents.  When he saw the paper at Hobby Lobby he just had to have it.

Daddy's Favorite Princess (5) made the ornament.  The tree branch stamp we got at a yard sale at the end of the summer and she was determined to use it.

R2-D2 (8) made the tree card.  Pretty plain but that is what he wanted.

First Time Hosting

I just hosted my first LTC swap. It was called "Christmas Carols 2013." Everything went smoothly and all the cards look great. Some folks are just so creative! But with a snow storm I am not sure when I'll get the cards to the post office :/

O Little Town of Bethlehem LTC

I am hosting my first LTC swap!  Back in October I noticed that there was only one Christmas LTC tracker on AQ.  Last year I participated in about a half dozen Christmas swaps and I was looking forward to making some more Christmas cards this year.

I asked on the AQ boards if anyone would be interested in another Christmas swap and several people said yes.  I called it, "Christmas Carols 2013" and I had a dozen people sign up.  This is so exciting :)

Last year, I participated in a swap called,  "Something New For Christmas."  I got back some really awesome cards.  There were several techniques that I just had to try and this is one of them.  I actually picked out this stamp image when the swap was over last time.  I have been looking forward to making this card for almost a year.

First, I took blue cardstock and painted it with white jeso.  While the jeso was still wet, I sprinkled the micro beads on it and pressed them down with some plastic wrap.  While that was drying, I carved my stamp and stamped it on the same blue cardstock that I used for the main background.  When the jeso was finished drying, I painted blue horizontal stripes across the card with three different shades of blue acrylic paint.  Now comes the hard part, I painted gold swirls on my blue background.  This has been my most labor intensive card that I have ever made but it was worth it!  I just love how they came out.    

Christmas Carols 2013: O Little Town of Bethlehem

Here are the instructions that I followed to make my cards:
http://techniqueszone.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/textured-micro-beads-backgrounds/

Trying to log 400

R2-D2, Daddy's Favorite Princess,
Lego Clone Trooper & Lil Ewok

I am trying to log my 400th find by the end of 2013.  We have found/attempted most of the boxes in our area so I decided to retry some of our previous attempts.  On Saturday we looked for 6 boxes that we had already searched for and found 3 of them.

Happy to find our first
 box of the day :)

Now I need 11 more boxes by the end of the year.  At our event in October, one of the boxers said that she was going to plant around Thanksgiving.  I am looking forward to that and my boxing buddy and I are going to try to get out one more time this year.   I hope I can reach my goal :)

Another Library Box

The Monster at the End of This Book LTC and box

We planted our second library box today.  I carved this stamp for the "Favorite Childhood Book" LTC tracker.  I am trying to only join swaps where I can reuse the stamps later.  We planted it at a library where I taught a letterboxing class this summer.

I have a bad feeling about this swap and I will probably never see the cards again.  The host doesn't log on often and has never responded to any of my messages.  Her mother sent out their mailing address but she doesn't get on AQ much either.  The start date was 2 days ago and she has not logged on in 10 days.  :(

St Louis Cookie Event

The Jewel Box in Forest Park.

Yesterday my boxing buddy and I went to St Louis, Mo to letterbox and go to an event.  We left home at 8am and arrived at Forest Park at about 10am.  We looked for 16 boxes; we found 15 and two hitchhikers!  It was a beautiful day in the park.  We also had a picnic lunch and I planted a box while we were there.

Stamping in the living room.

We got a little lost going from the park to the event so we were about 20 minutes late.  But we had a good time.  Everyone was supposed to bring cookies to share.  I was surprised to find that they had hid boxes around the house.

Stamping in the kitchen

I had already met a few of the people and I got to exchange with some new folks and get there PTs.  Of course there were a ton of table top boxes.  And my boxing buddy and I both won door prizes!  I ended up sitting on the floor because it was easier to stamp everything there.  We got home about 10:30pm.  It was a long day but a lot of fun :)

Letterbox Quilt Square

Hiking With Family

I am participating in the "Letterboxing Quilters Unite" swap.  This is the quilt square that I made.  Or one of them actually.  I ran out of fabric and ended up making half of them from another Christmas fabric.

I am so very excited about this project!!  I will defiantly post a pic if I ever finish the quilt.

I am not sure what to do with the stamp now that I am done.  I am thinking about sending it off as a postal single.  Then making it a personal traveler or an event box.  idk :)

Planting & Boxing

Resting while mom takes notes.

Today we went out and planted our Monster High boxes.  It is supposed to storm on Halloween so we planted them today and will list them on Thursday.  A few times this year we drove past an area while letterboxing that caught my attention and I wanted to check it out.  It is a little nature preserve with a small loop trail.  We had a nice time walking and planting our boxes and hope that the finders enjoy it too.

We have already boxed in this area and thought that we had found/attempted everything.  But then I discovered that there were some old boxes on LbNA that we had missed.  Both of the boxes that we looked for were planted in 2007.

St Joseph Church in Jasper,

The first one we found was in St Henry.  The stamp was great but the box was in horrible shape.  It was a pouch and it had bugs, water, and mud in it.  We replaced everything but the stamp.  When we got home I discovered that it has been retired on AQ but it is there :)

The other box that we found was planted at St Joseph Catholic Church in Jasper.  The church and grounds were beautiful.  The box was very easy to find.  We actually think it was in the wrong spot because it was a little to easy to find.  This box had recently been updated and we were the second people to stamp in the new logbook.  The kids enjoyed running around while I stamped and they lost one of our old store bought signature stamps.  All in all it was a nice day.

First Finders!

Today we looked for 2 letterboxes and we were "First Finders" for both :)  Woo Hoo!  We went to Posey County, which is west of us, and Warrick County, which is east of us.

We started off at Harmonie State Park in Posey County.  Someone came over last fall for our event and planted a box while she was here.  For some reason she never posted the clue.  She recently posted on the Indiana board to see if anyone would be interested in going after it.  I wanted to get out and needed to go to Harmonie anyway so she sent me her notes.

The princess with our first box of the day. 

All we had were her rough notes but were able to find it.  The stamp was really cool and my daughter liked the logbook.  It was an exciting adventure.

When you plant a box in a state park in Indiana you are supposed to fill out a Geocaching permit.  It was time to renew my permits so I went and checked on 3 of my boxes while we were there.  Sadly one of them was missing.  I think I will retire and not recarve.

After that we stopped and got some lunch at the DQ in Mt Vernon and headed to Newburgh in Warrick County.

Princess and Lil Ewok at the second box. 

This box was also planted by someone out of town and in an area now full of letterboxes.  But we were happy to get it and be first finders.  The image was a cannon but the baby kept saying that it was a "Choo choo."  He has a birthday coming up and I think we will plant a "choo choo" box for him.  Glad we got these boxes before it gets to cold.

2013 Fall Event

Evansville Area Meet & Greet 

We just had our 2013 fall event!  A few months ago I tried to get a hold of the ladies who helped with our big event last year.  I wasn't able to contact them and I thought that I would not be able to hold a big event on my own.  So we went to a small restaurant event in Nashville a few months ago and I decided that I would have an event like that.

We had 7 people (including me) show up at the Golden Corral to exchange, pass around table tops, eat, and fellowship.  I had met everyone but 2 of the people but it is nice to get together with people who understand the hobby.

One of the other boxers talked about putting on an event in the spring and I am looking forward to that.  And another said that they had two big series in the works for next year.  That was exciting news too :)  Now I want to have a big event next fall and the ideas are already flowing.

Autumn Awe LTCs

This is my second year to participate in the "Autumn Awe" LTC tracker.  This time I used alcohol inks and salt for the paper that the stamp was stamped on.  I used fall colors and carved a stamp of falling leaves.

Autumn Awe: Falling Leaves

I am not very creative when it comes to embeshishing cards but I wanted to add something extra to it.  That is where the ribbon comes in.  I know it is not real fancy but it is outside the box for me.  I haven't gotten my cards back so I am looking forward to seeing what others made.

Autumn Awe: The Perfect Pumpkin

The card I made last year is "The Perfect Pumpkin".  This was the third LTC tracker that I signed up for.  At first, the stamp was all one piece and I had to color the different parts.  I decided I didn't like it so I re-carved it and made all the pieces separate.  The pumpkin, stem, vine, and leaf are all separate stamps.

For the swirly vines background, I used a store bought stamp and covered the part where the pumpkin would go.  On some of the cards the vines were green and others they were gold.  I think I did pretty good for a newbie.

Bring on the Brads

Fall Friend 

This is my card for the "Bring on the Brads" LTC swap.  As soon as I saw the tracker I knew that I wanted to make a fall card.  I am also in the "Autumn Awe" tracker and I saw some pretty fall leaf brads when I was working on that card.

The stamp for this card is recycled from a series that I planted at my event last fall.  They were on the trail at a state park from Sept to Dec and now they are sitting in a drawer.  It was nice to dust him off and reuse him.  I am really looking forward to seeing what other people made.

My First Geocaching Event

Cachers talking

I went to my first geocaching event today. Around here the only people who plant hybrid boxes are geocachers. And for the most part they only put the clues on the geocaching web site. I have a Girl Scout friend who is an active cacher and I was asking about this one day. She said that we should have a Geocacher/Letterboxer event to talk about this kind of stuff.

Looking at my LTC binder

So today at one of the local libraries we had the event. I talked about letterboxing and listing clues on our web sites. If they are going to take the time to plant a cache with a stamp why not put clues to the box where people who look for stamps can find them?

I also took carving tools and told people if they were interested in making a stamp to bring a school eraser. Most of the geocachers brought erasers. I took some extras and I believe everyone made a stamp.

Carving stamps 

I have never been to a geocaching event before so I didn't know what they do to pass the time. I took two of my table tops and they seemed to enjoy those. I also took one of my binders of LTCs to show off different stamps. I think they all liked that too. I wish I could have gotten some other letterboxers to attend but our numbers are really low right now :(

Monster High & Crappy Pink

Daddy's Favorite Princess and I are participating in the "Monster High" LTC tracker.  The due date was a few days ago so maybe we will get them back by the end of next week.

This was the princesses fourth stamp and her first positive carve.  I think I didn't explain what I wanted her to do very well because she just scratched the surface of the parts she was supposed to carve away.  Or maybe I should have given her a bigger gauge.  Anyway, I ended up doing a lot of "clean up" on her stamp.

As for my stamp, we finally got a stab of the crappy 2012 pink.  It is extremely soft and just rubbing your hand across it will bring off bits of material.  I had heard a lot of people complaining about the new pink on the AQ boards so I knew it was just a matter of time before we got some.

One of the things that really surprised me about the bad material was that it didn't ink well.  I had planed on embossing my card but it wouldn't take the ink.  I inked the stamp with an embossing pad, stamped it on cardstock, and dumped the embossing powder on.  But the powder wouldn't stick to the paper.  I thought that maybe my ink pad was drying out so I tried it again with a black ink pad.  It still wouldn't work.  So, I didn't emboss the card after all.

On a positive note, this week we found 2 slabs of 09 pink and it should hold us over for a while :)

We will be planting our Monster High stamps for Halloween.  Just looking for a good place to put them.  I have an idea, I just need to find some time to check it out.

Experimenting with Vellum

Pitch a Tent 

I just got my cards back from the "TGIF" LTC swap.  They came in the mail on Friday and I had to look at them and go because we were going camping.

This was my first time to use vellum.  I had heard several people talking about it on the LTC Facebook page and I decided to give it a try.  This was also my first time to use a brad on my card.  But I recently joined a tracker called "Bring on the Brads" where you had to use a brad on the card.  I'm starting to step out of my comfort zone a little bit.

I carved the stamp OZ and I will be donating it to some Girl Scouts in Ill who are trying to get more people interested in the hobby.

Peddling my Wares

My husband has been bugging me for a while that I need to find a way to sell my stamps and logbooks.  So I gave in started an Etsy shop.  I am starting off slow.  Right now I have a few logbooks and a pre-made letterbox for Brownie Girl Scouts.

I am not sure how I will go about selling stamps.  I think if people need a stamp they will just go to the store and buy one.  I will probably hold off on those until the spring.

Pre-made letterbox
(Lock & Lock, logbook, stamp, and pouch)

Now that I decided to do this I can only find time to make logbooks once the kids are in bed :(  In November, I plan to add some cross stitch Christmas ornaments.  My shop will have letterboxing stuff and some misc crafts.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Christmas6Creations

Calling All Sea Lovers LTCs

We just got our cards back from the "Calling All Sea Lovers" LTC swap.  I made the sand castle, Lego Clone Trooper (11) made the crab, R2-D2 (8) made the sea turtle, and Daddy's Favorite Princess (5) made the shell.  We got back an awesome set of cards.  It think this has been my favorite swap yet.

To Vincennes and beyond

Wooden sculpture of Tecumseh

Yesterday I went letterboxing in Vincennes.  I went with my boxing buddy who recently turned 70.  It is great boxing with her because she doesn't give up easily.  She was stung by a hornet on the head while we were out and she really didn't fuss about it.  If it would have been one of my kids we probably would have just turned around and went back home even though we were an hour away.

We started off in Vincennes.  Vincennes is in Knox county on the Wabash River in southwest Indiana.  It was founded in 1732 and is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in Indiana and one of the oldest settlements west of the Appalachians.  The city has a lot of history and I would love to plant a box there.  For more information you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincennes,_Indiana.

All together we looked for six boxes there and found two (if you count web boxes).  One of the boxes that we could not find was a mystery box planted near the wooden sculpture of Tecumseh.  I was very disappointed that it was missing.  We also when to Ouabache (Wabash) Park.  It was supposed to have 3 boxes.  Two of them were planted by a park ranger in January but we could not find them and no one else has found them either.

George Rogers Clark Memorail

When we left Vincennes we came back south and grabbed a letterbox/geocache hybrid and went on to Mt Carmel, Il.  We found that one and moved on to Bone Gap.  We could not find that one and it was the end of the clues that I brought.

But my boxing buddy took me to one in Albion and she had brought a clue for a box in Fairfield.  We found both of those and started heading for home.  We had dinner at a Subway and made it back to Evansville just before 8pm.

It was a beautiful day to be out letterboxing.  We only found 6 of the 11 boxes we went for but it was so nice to be out and about.

The baby destroyed my cards

I spent this morning working on my cards for the "Trail Stamps Through The Years" tracker.  I was finished except for stamping the back and I left them on the table to get stuff together for my Girl Scout meeting tonight.  After a while I thought that the house sounded to quiet.  Sure enough, Lil Ewok (who will be 2 in January) was in the ink pads.

The tracker called for 11 cards, I made 12, and the baby messed up 4.  On the outside are our original stamps that I bought in November 2010.  At that time we were just christmas5.  Lil Ewok was born in January of 2012.  I didn't want to change our name because we had planted boxes as christmas5 and we never box together.  But I gave in to my noxer husband and changed to christmas6.

I like the little store bought stamps because the kids could all have a stamp of their own.  When I discovered letterboxing in Ocotober 2010 my kids were 8, 5, and 2.  I thought that they would enjoy stamping their own stamps in the boxes that we found.

I believe that I carved the big holly stamp with hearts in August 2012.  At first the holly and hearts were one piece and I colored them different colors.  After a while I decided that that took to long and I cut the hearts out and ink them separate.  I like using ink pads instead of markers.  

So that is where we are right now.  We use the little stamps in small logbooks and HHs and the big one for medium/big logbooks and exchanges.  I like this stamp(s) just the way it is.  It has our trail name and where we are from.  I really have no desire to change it.

PS-I also have a small signature stamp for the back of my LTCs.  It was carved by nosox in August(?) 2012.

Boxing in Warrick County

Today Lil Ewok and I went letterboxing in Warrick Co. We found all 5 boxes that we looked for!

The first box was in Chandler and it was planted by a Girl Scout troop. This is the 3rd box in our area planted by Brownies earning their Letterboxing Badge and it was the best. I'm glad that some of the leaders are getting it.

Lil Ewok celebrating our 5th find of the day.  

The other 4 that we looked for were in Newbrugh. They were all planted by the same boxer. All the boxes were in planters pouches in cemeteries and businesses along one road in town.

It is so rare to find all the letterboxes we go for. Great boxing day :)

Cooties!

GS Cookie Cooties

I just got my cards back from an LTC swap where you made a card from cooties.  I made up 8 cooties when I taught letterboxing at Girl Scout camp this summer (2 of them when missing).

I used two different papers for the background because I couldn't decide which one I liked better.  I got the paper from my mom.  She is a big scrapbooker and I go to her for a lot of card stuff.  The card has 3 stamps on the front and one on the back :)