Hitchhiker Hustle IV & V

HHH4: Daffodils

 I LOVE HITCHHIKERS :)  So I am in the Hitchhiker Hustle 4&5 swaps.

For HHH4, I was digging in my carving material scrap bucket and found this daffodil stamp that I carved but never cut away from the block.  It is small so I used it for this swap.

I like the look of text pages on LTCs so I cut up some more pages, stamped the stamp in a clear embossing ink pad, and embossed it with yellow embossing powder.  I wanted to do the opposite-stamp the stamp in yellow ink and use clear embossing powder but my yellow ink pad was yucky.

Then I rubbed the distress ink in the card.  I bought the fancy rubber a while ago but never used it.  The distress ink does not stick to the embossed flower.  I really like how they turned out and I will probably use this technique again :)

About HHH5, I am also in the Lepidoptera (aka butterflies/moths) swap and I have butterflies on the brain.  I carved up my stamp for the butterfly swap but carved another one for this swap too.

HHH5: Blue Butterfly

This card is pretty simple.  I stamped the butterfly in black ink on blue paper.  For the yellow background, I used a dry embossing machine.  I got one for my birthday.  This is the first time I have used it but I am looking forward to playing with it more.  I have been thinking about color wheels and that is why I put the blue & yellow together.

I hope these guys have a long and well traveled life :)

Tin Man LTC

I am in the Brew Pubs and Micro Brewery LTC swap.  I am not a beer drinker myself (I prefer drinks that are fruity and sweet) but the food at the Tin Man Brewery good.  And I have been thinking about carving a stamp and hiding it near the restaurant so I signed up for this swap.

 For the card, I took some old store bought gear stamps and stamped them on the background and attached my image with foam squares.

I wanted to make the quisp but thought it was a waist of time and material because I didn't need to hide two stamps for the same place.  But then someone needed beer stamps for an event so I decided to carve up the second one.

I will be hiding the circle one on a pedestrian path less than a block from the brewery and I send the quisp one off for the event.

I am looking forward to getting the cards because I have been having mail withdrawals!  I was in a postal ring and I hosted two LTC swaps where I was getting fun mail all the time.  Now it's just bills and boring stuff.  Come on fun mail :)

Spring Boxing

First Finder :)

Like a lot of the country, we had a long cold winter here in SW Indiana and I didn't do much letterboxing. Last year I went around and did maintenance on all of my boxes but not this year.

Last week we had such nice weather and on Saturday I was able to sneak away and do some boxing. Someone planted some new boxes in our area but they are both about 45 min from me and about an hour from each other. One of the boxes was in an area that I hadn't boxed before so I took off northwest of Evansville.

Tank in Greyville park

I started off in a cemetery in Griffin, In. I was the first finder, woo hoo. It was a nice little stamp of a hummingbird. Which reminds me that i need to clean out my hummingbird feeders.

Albion Cemetery

Then, I shot over to Greyville, Ill. I had never been here before but always imagined it to be a tiny place. It was much bigger than I thought it would be. They don't have a Walmart or anything but they have a lot of little stores. I found a hitchhiker here! (I love hitchhikers :)

Next, I went up to Albion. G-MA and I had boxed here before but I didn't print off any clues. She just took me to the one box she remembered while we were passing through. I got two really nice boxes at the Albion Cemetery.

Wanborough, Ill

 Last, I went to Wanborough. It is just a few miles west of Albion. It sounds like it was a hopping little place in the early 1800s. I believe the marker said that it was the first town in Ill to have a distillery. But as Albion grew everyone moved there.

It was such a beautiful day and I am so glad that I was able to get out. And I found all the boxes that I looked for.

Wetland Maintenance

Stopping to look at high water

Last week we had a storm come thru and drop 6 inches of rain in a day. There was some flash flooding and the local wetlands was under water. We have 5 letterboxes there and today we went out to check on them.

Four of the boxes are a series that we planted in April 2011 and the other one was planted in March 2013. We looked for the series first and found 3 of the 4.

Geese hanging out

The one that was missing may actually still be there. In the area of the hiding spot a tree has fallen and someone cut up the limbs and whatnot and dumped them off the trail where our box was. And with the flooding the area was covered with leaves, sticks, and dirt. I dug around with a stick for a while but couldn't find anything. This box has gone missing before so I just retired it.

There were lots of turtles out sunning

Two of the others in this series were wet but in good shape. The last box is never recovered well when I check on it. I know there is a geocache in the area but I don't have a GPS so I don't know where it is. But if it is cachers not covering the box well it is nice that they leave the stamp :)

Lil Ewok loves water

For the last box the tree it is in is visible from the road and for a few days the base was under water. I was really worried about this one. It is actually part a 3 part series that is around town. One of the other boxes in the set has gone missing twice and I was hoping that this one was still there.

When we got to the tree it was clear that the box was gone. I decided to look in the direction the water would have went when it receded but I didn't see anything. I got to thinking that if it was there under the leaves, sticks, and dirt it would be pretty hard to find. After about five minutes the princess declared that she was ready to go. So, I slowly started walking back to the tree and didn't see anything.

Another view of the walkways/building

I was thinking that I should give up but when I got up next to the tree I found the box on the high side about two feet from the tree. I was very excited! I opened it to make sure it was ok and I recovered it well with sticks and leaves. I am thinking about putting a rock on it but I know if this happens again where to look for it :)

Happy Birthday to me :)

Today is my birthday and I have been very busy.  I am currently hosting 2 LTC swaps that are supposed to start today.

The first swap is called "Anything Easter."  Daddy's Favorite Princess and I are both participating.  My card is pretty simple.  I stamped my bunny on cardstock and painted the eggs with Crayola watercolor paints.  I also put flocking in the ears and on the nose.

The princess carved and colored all of her cards herself (I helped by stamping them).  They are bigger than 2.5 x 3.5 so she folded them in half and put pretty flower stickers on the outside.

The other swap I am hosting is "Life is good."  I am really excited about this set and the cards coming in all look great.  I caved a bubble bath stamp for my cards and made a bubble background.

I have made this background before and had a lot of fun with it.  You take some bubbles and dump them in a tupperware container.  Then you stick a straw in the liquid, start blowing bubbles, drop food coloring on the bubbles, and lay your paper on the bubbles.  Sometimes I keep blowing while I lay the paper on to get it extra bubbly.

In 2014 we are celebrating all the Christmas family birthdays with letterboxes so I am going to plant my "Life is good" stamp and two others.  I have a busy day planned with political fundraisers, school choir performances, craft shows, and more but I think I can squeeze it in.

My Esty shop has been going crazy recently and I had 9 orders in 2 weeks!  Now that things are settling down I need to work on LTCs and I told my hubby I would make him curtains for his garage.  So, I better stop blogging and get back to work!

I hate computers

I absolutely hate computers!  I somehow managed to delete all the pics on my blog :(

Here is the problem: my husband got me a tablet for Christmas.  What was he thinking!?  He knows that I am tech stupid!  I had it for little over a month and the baby drops it and shatters the screen.  Ugh!  We fix it the cheep way- find a new screen online and replace it following YouTube videos.  Now the tablet doesn't work right.  Was it because the baby dropped it?  Or my husband didn't put the screen on right?  I don't know.

Anyway, I got it in December and it recently sent me a message that it was full and may not work properly.  What?  I just got it!  It doesn't have many pics on it because I don't like the quality of the photos.  It doesn't have any music because I listen to radio apps.  It has very few apps.  How can it be full?!

Well, I got to looking at it and apparently Google+ "backed up" ALL of my photos from my computer to my tablet.  I tried deleting them from the tablet but they kept coming back.  So I sat down at the computer and deleted all my photos from Google+.  And now all of my blog photos are gone :(  I can look thru CDs, flash drives, and the external hard drive to find and replace the pics but it will be a while.  I am so frustrated!!