When I was in high school, I saw my future with 6 kids, a big garden, and some chickens. After having a few kids, I could tell that we would never move and we would not squeeze 8 people into our house. We stopped after 4 kids. We do have a small garden and I just keep talking about chickens.
I guess you can say that my Christmas present for 2017 was chickens. My husband built a coop and when the Rural King got chicks in January, he and the boys brought some home.
This is my LTC for Sheep Thrills "Backyard Chickens" swap. I usually go to Pinterest for inspiration but this time I went thru my LTC binders. I knew I had received a card with eggs on it. I got it in 2013 and it was in my oldest binder. It was called, "Spring is in the Air: Birdhouse Surprise" by Luck Duck.
Backyard Chickens: Breakfast
My card is pretty simple. I carved the nest with eggs and stamped it on cream card stock. The wood grain outside is scrapbook paper. I had the nail brads from a previous project. The chicken wire was the biggest challenge ;) I looked online for a stamp or embossing folder to buy. I found that Tim Holtz made a chicken wire stamp and I debated on weather or not to buy it. I decided to go thru the cling stamps that I had and discovered that I already had it :P
I like how my cards turned out and I am looking forward to getting eggs from my chickens <3
Back in the fall, my boxing buddy was telling me about giant stuff she saw on TV in Casey, Ill. I saw it too and said we had to go in the spring. My kids are on Spring Break this week so I took off one day to box and one day to clean. On Tuesday G-MA, Puppy Love, Daddy's Favorite Princess, and I ventured up to Casey.
According to Atlas Quest there were no boxes in Casey but one nearby in a place called Moonshine. It didn't look too far out of the way so we stopped. Moonshine is famous for their Moonburger. We all had one, got a tshirt, and looked for the box. We couldn't find the letterbox but enjoyed our short time there.
World's Largest Rocking Chair
We got out on the road and finished the trip to Casey. It was probably 2.5 hours away and it rained almost the whole way up. Our first stop was the World's Largest Wind Chime and World's Largest Rocking Chair. The rocking chair is huge! It was my favorite big thing :)
We also went up in the World's Largest Mailbox. We mailed a few letters and postcards from there. The flag on the side slowly goes up when you drop your mail in a slot at the top. In the Candy Depot directly behind the mailbox is the World's Largest Wooden Shoes. While we were close, we checked out a big bird cage and pencil.
Big pencil and World's Largest Mailbox
Then we got back in the car and drove to the country club to see the World's Largest Golf Tee. And drove a little further to see the World's Largest Pitchfork. I planted 4 boxes in town- at the rocking chair, mailbox, golf tee, and pitchfork. Casey is a very clean place and I hope the boxes last a while for folks to find them.
The Princess @ the
sculpture park
We drove down the interstate to Effingham to get a few boxes. We looked for 4 and found 3. Then we went on to Mt Vernon, Ill and got two boxes at an art center and sculpture park. We arrived at the sculpture park 30 minutes before it closed. We had a good time finding the boxes but wish we would have had more time to explore.
We had dinner at a Steak and Shake in Mt Vernon and plotted our trip home. We couldn't decide if we should stop for rest area boxes on the way home or not. It was raining again and we passed them by. We did stop in Carmi at a cemetery in the dark, and in the rain to grab a box that I already had, but my boxing buddies needed. The princess kept saying zombies were going to get us for being in the cemetery at night.
Even thought it rained most of the day we had a great time. We got to see some really cool stuff. I found 5 boxes, planted 4 and a hitchhiker. It was a wet day but a lot of fun :)
Here is the story we saw about Casey on CBS Sunday Morning:
And here is Bill Geist, CBS Sunday Morning and his visit to Moonshine:
Last Saturday, the princess and I had a very busy day. Luckily, we managed to plant a box and look for two hybrid boxes between the many activities going on.
That evening we squeezed in a local letterbox event. There were 10 or 11 people there and half of them were folks that I had met before.
Southern Indiana Meet, Eat & Stamp
We enjoyed stamping, talking, and eating. The host planned an activity where they asked everyone to carve a St Patrick's Day stamp. They locked them in boxes and we had to solve puzzles to get the stamps. We suck at this kind of thing and didn't get one of the stamps. Oh well :/
This is my card for tigerlilly's "Beauty in Nature" LTC swap. My card is called Tree Rings and it looked better in my head.
I carved the stamp, stamped it white on black and embossed, then I stamped it again, grey on the white background. I'm not totally happy with them. Maybe I should have flipped the color scheme; black stamp on white, then white on black for the background :/
A few months ago something funny happened to me and I almost forgot about it. But it has to do with stamps so when I remembered I had to make a blog post.
I had a guy contact me on Etsy, saying that he had a blog all about S'mores. He said he was looking for s'more things on Google and found the s'more stamp in my Etsy shop. He asked if I would send him one for free/discount. I send letterboxers free stamps all the time for events so I decided to do it.
When I sent the stamp I also sent a handout about letterboxing. The guy sounded very interested and was worried that his comments about letterboxing might over shadow the stamp. I told him no big deal and that I was looking forward to seeing his review.
Like I said, I had forgotten about it until earlier this week. I love how he put the stamp up on an easel. You can check it out at smoresearch.com.
My husband is running for County Council. We had a fundraiser Saturday and it was a big success. We sold all the extra meat we bought and we had folks stop by just to give a donation.
Of course I made a stamp for the special occasion. I told boxers that they could come and get it at the fundraiser or I will plant it after. No one stopped by the fundraiser to stamp it. Oh well, I'm sure folks are busy. I'm just happy the fundraiser is over and now we can order yard signs and whatnot.
This is my LTC for hartwolfzell's "Greens and Blues" LTC swap. I had carved the dream catcher to sell at a craft show. But it didn't sell and I used it here.
I have played around with Gelatos but never actually used them on a set of cards. So I scribbled the green and blue gelatos on the watercolor paper, sprayed with water and propped them up to let the water and color run down.
Greens and Blues: Dream Catcher
When they were dry, I stamped the stamp and embossed it with glitter embossing powder. I also ruffed up the edge of the card. I should have used a little more of the gelatos but I am happy with how they turned out.
