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 :)