Happy Solar Eclipse Day!

Lil Ewok (in black) and his Kindergarten class

I live in southwest Indiana and we were supposed to be 99% totality for the solar eclipse today.  I originally planned on going down to Hopkinsville, Ky to watch the eclipse with some other letterboxers.  But about a month out, they were talking about all the crowds/traffic and we decided to stay home.

Daddy's Favorite Princess (red w/ hands on head)
and 3rd grade class

Boxing Turtle in 7th grade

I went and watched at my kids school.  We had a few thin clouds but we had a great view.  I was disappointed with the point of "totality".  I thought being 99% it would be darker, we would be able to see stars, the corona, etc.   When looking away, it seemed like a big cloud covered the sun.  The street lights came on and the crickets/cicada were buzzing.  My 2 older boys were disappointed too :(

On Sunday, I planted a box for the eclipse.  Two other boxers have planted boxes within an hour of me while they were traveling to see the event too :)

I have already started looking at the maps for the solar eclipse 2024 and it looks like we will be in totality then.  Wow!  I guess all the crazies will come to us  ;)

Summer Craft & Swap

This is my card for the "Summer Craft & Swap" hosted by aMAZEing adventure frog.  My card is called, "Ship in a Bottle."  I carved this stamp for Blackvelvetrav's pirate event.  But I liked the stamp so much I had to make some LTCs with it.

I got the background paper at the Ohio prairie event.  You may recall that Lil Ewok won a door prize at that event.  He got a plastic pail & shovel, stickers, background papers, and LTC sleeves.  These are some of the background papers that he got :)

The fish in the background are store bought cling stamps.  They are embossed with glitter embossing powder.  The old fishing net is gauze that I stained with alcohol inks.  I stamped, colored, cut out the bottles, and attached them with 3D glue dots.  I love how they turned out :)

Back to School & Smores

My kids went back to school this week.  This year all of my kids are in school!

Bantha Rider is a sophomore.  He texted on the first day that he couldn't get his locker open.

Boxing Turtle is in 7th grade.  He says that he likes it.

Daddy's Favorite Princess is in 3rd grade.  She thought she wouldn't like her teacher but now she thinks the teacher is nice.

Lil Ewok is in Kindergarten and is having a rough go at it.  He says school is too long, he doesn't have enough time to eat lunch, some people are not nice, he misses me, he doesn't have enough home time, etc.  He was crying when I dropped him off this morning because I wouldn't walk him to his room. Hopefully he will be better on Monday.

Yesterday was National S'mores Day!  As a Girl Scout and an avid camper I had to plant a box to celebrate.  I also carved a s'more stamp for my local GS council to give away at an upcoming event.  So I carved two s'mores for the delicious holiday :)

National S'mores Day

New Signature Stamp

Old - Sometime in 2011

New - 8/2017

I have been thinking about carving a new signature stamp and finally did it.  I liked my old sig stamp but it was warped and not stamping well.  I also wanted a stamp that was one color.

My first hand carved sig stamp was 2 holly leaves and 4 heart berries for my 4 kids.  The stamp was all one piece and a pain to color.  I quickly cut the hearts out and stamped them separate.  The heart was pretty small and there were a few times on the trail that I thought I had lost it.

For a few weeks I have playing around with new stamps ideas.  I wanted to stick with the holly but couldn't find anything that really jumped out at me.  It took me forever to get Word to make the text go all the way around the snowman.  I figured it out but I hope I remember the trick if I ever need it again.

I started carving it yesterday and finished this morning.  The BOTM was planted last night and I got to try my new stamp out today.  It's not perfect but I like it :)