Secret Santa Stamp

Check out the cute stamp I got from my Secret Santa.  We have 2 pickle ornaments on our Christmas tree and I love this stamp.  I actually plan on keeping my stamp this year.  I usually plant them as traditional boxes or send them off as hitchhikers.  Thanks AdventurousAcorn!

I sent my stamp off to RDHG.  They have a travel blog and I thought they would enjoy this traveling Woodstock stamp. 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year <3

Winter Craft & Swap

This is my LTC for aMAZEing adventure frog's Winter Craft & Swap tracker.  My card is called, "The Holy Family."

For this card, I used the same technique as my last New/Underused Product LTC.  HERE is that blog post if you want to see it.  And HERE is the video that I tried to copy if you want to go straight to the pro ;)

I rolled a layer of alcohol ink on the Gelli Plate with a brayer.  Put down a stencil and press it down with the bubble wrap.  Now, add more alcohol ink colors and use the cardboard/bubble wrap to add texture/transfer color from one area to another.

I went to buy more alcohol inks recently and accidentally got the pearl kind.  I had never used it before and tried it on these cards.  It looks pretty cool.  I'll have to use it more often.

Winter Craft & Swap 2019: The Holy Family 

When the inks are dry, roll out a layer of paint.  I used cream color paper and white paint.  You can add more texture after the paint if you want.  The first pull I smashed a wadded up plastic bag, but forgot about it on other pulls.

I have been using a lot of vellum here lately.  I stamped my stamp on vellum and attached it with a simple brad.  Then glued it to brown textured scrapbook paper.  I carved a small star stamp to stamp on the Gelli background but didn't end up using.

Christmas Ornaments 2019

2019 Ornaments

This is my 4th year to participate in the Christmas Ornament swap, hosted by Moose on the Loose.  I got a bunch of fun ornaments today.

For this swap you are supposed to make an ornament and include a stamp.  The stamp can be on the ornament or a tag or something like that.

Last year someone made personalized ornaments for each participant.  I decided to do that too.  I got this idea from Pinterest.  I had an old atlas that was worn and had been wet.  I found each persons city on the map and made sure that it was inside the ring of the ornament.

Home is where the heart is 

If you follow my blog, the stamp should look familiar.  This is the stamp that I used all year in the New/Underused Product LTC swaps.  Here I made Shrinky Dinks with them.  I'm very happy with how they turned out :)

Merry Christmas <3

Scrap LTC

 This is my card for Gypsy Fiddler's "Scraps Challenge-The Sequel" LTC tracker.  When She hosted the first one, it filled up before I could join.  I thought about making cards anyway in the hopes someone would drop, but didn't. 

My original idea for a scrap card was a crazy quilt.  But when she posted the second swap she suggested that we make something for the upcoming holiday season.  That is when I decided to make the cornucopia. 

For the swap, we had to make at least 3 stamps from our scrap pile.  I carved 14 but only used 13.  I didn't end up using the curved leaf.

Carving the stamps was the easy part of this tracker.  Making time to color, cut, and assemble was the hard part.  This was my first time using Copic
markers and I really enjoyed it.  I tried shading three different ways- going over the area with the same color, going over the area with a darker color, and going over the shaded area with grey.  The princess was excited to play with them and shaded some of the pieces. 

Another new thing I used on this swap was a sticker machine.  My mom is a scrapbooker and she uses these to assemble layered embellishments that she makes with her Cricut.  My daughter saw them, asked for one for her birthday, and I borrowed it for this project. 

I think it was easier that gluing them all individually but it leaves a residue like rubber cement.  I had to rub down all the cards at the end to get it off. 

I'm happy with how the cards turned out but I will probably not be doing anything like this again.  I am turning these stamps into an event box.  You may see them in the future :)

New/Underused Product Part 4

Linden Leaf is hosting some different LTC swaps this year.  She posted them last year giving us plenty of time to learn, play, and work on our cards.  For the swap you are supposed to pick a new or underused product and use it in different ways to make four sets of cards.  I picked the Gelli Plate.  I have used my plate a few times but I thought I was not using it to its fullest.

This is my final one of these swaps.  This is the one technique that I have been dying to try since these swaps started.  I had no idea that you could use alcohol inks on a gelli plate.  HERE is the video that I tried to copy.

Start off by putting the alcohol ink on the plate, spread it around with the brayer, and let it dry.  Then, in the video, she puts a stencil down and pushed it down with a piece of bubble wrap.  I love the stencil she uses and wish she gave more info about it.  (Sorry that my stencil is clear.)

Next she adds ink with a kitchen trivet.  I have a silicon oven mitt with a similar texture and used that.  She put the ink on a "puddle pad" and stamps the trivet in that.  I have no idea what a "puddle pad" is and I put the ink directly on my oven mitt.

The woman in the video is a little annoying and adds more texture items and another color with the brayer.

After this last layer of ink she stamps the whole thing  (stencil still down) with a large texture plate.  I don't have one of those but saw this serving tray at the dollar store and thought it would do that same thing.  I didn't really see the pattern from the serving tray on the plate but some of the ink does come off so I assume it works. 

Now it's time to pull off your stencil.  When the ink is dry, roll out a thin later of paint.  In the video she adds more texture after the paint and I did the same with a wrinkled up grocery bag.  Finally, you pull your print.  For this set, I used only white card stock.

For the first go I followed the video religiously.  But after a few pulls I kinda did whatever.  After a while I stopped with the oven mitt and used a corner of the bubble wrap instead.  I changed up the colors a little bit each time, sticking with a fall theme.

The hardest part about these cards was picking a border color and stamping my stamp.  I wanted to stamp my stamp in a maroon color on velum but it bled and looked like a red blob.  I tried two different inks pads one of them being Stazon.  I ended up stamping it with brown.

I'm very happy with how these cards turned out.  I am very likely to use this technique again :)  BIG THANKS to Linden Leaf for hosting these swaps <3

Here is my first card:
https://wchristmas6.blogspot.com/2019/02/newunderused-product-part-1.html

My second card:
https://wchristmas6.blogspot.com/2019/05/newunderused-product-part-2.html

And my third card for the new/underused product LTC swap:
https://wchristmas6.blogspot.com/2019/08/newunderused-product-part-3.html

Four Seasons Day Event

Yesterday, my son Boxing Turtle and I attend the Four Seasons Day Event in Chandler, In.  Chandler is about 30 minutes from our house and the event started at 10 am.  I thought I was going to get to sleep in but the kids were up bright and early.

For this event, they divided up their little town into four sections and each section was a season.  We started off in Spring and got the Summer boxes too.

Then we went back for lunch and stamped a few table top boxes.  After lunch we found Fall and Winter.  We missed one of the Spring boxes but talked to some folks at lunch who said it is now in the right spot.  We found all 36 of the event boxes.

When we were done we went back for a snack and stamped more table tops.  I had wanted to exchange with a few folks but they were all out boxing when I was ready to stamp.

The weather was nice and we had a good time.  Boxing Turtle is a funny navigator, reading too much of the clue at a time, which had us driving in circles because I couldn't remember what he said.  We took a selfie in each season but forgot to take any pics in the church.

Shakamak & Event Stamps

Shakamak State Park 

About 2 weeks ago, my boxing buddy and I went back to Shakamak State Park.  We attended an event there in May but only found half the boxes.

I dropped the kids off at school, got gas, picked up G-MA, and we headed north to the park.  Shakamak is about 2 hours away.  We had talked about going back a few times but had to wait for good weather.  We ended up finding 33 of the 37 boxes we looked for.  I left a hitchhiker and G-MA gave me a few that she had.

Western Event Stamp

Teacup and mudflinginfools are hosting a western event and asked for stamps.  I carved these three and I'll be sending an older stamp.  They asked that we wait until after October 1st to send them.  I need to get them packaged up and in the mail before they get burred and I totally forget :)

Autumn Craft & Swap

This is my card for aMAZEing adventure frogs "Autumn Craft & Swap" tracker.  This is my 9th time to participate in one of these swaps and I am signed up for the winter one too.

I kinda cheated and used the exact same stamps from the card I made last year. HERE is a link to that blog post if you want to check it out.  My cards this year are called, "Autumn Leaf."

I found this technique on Pinterest and you can learn more here.  It is the second technique on the page.  I forgot to take a pic of the first step but I'll walk you thru what to do.
Take a cardboard box and put paper towels in the bottom.  Lay your watercolor paper in the box and the stencil on top.  Spray Ranger Distress Resist Spray on the stencil/paper.  You should wash the stencil right away and let the paper dry.

Then spray the paper with Distress Sprays.  I have a lot of the Distress Oxide Sprays and I used Fired Brick and Spiced Marmalade.  I think it would have looked better with plain Distress Sprays but I didn't want to waist and used the Oxide ones.  Once they were all dry I cut them to size.

Autumn Craft & Swap 2019: Autumn Leaf

For the leaves, I rubbed Distress Ink and Oxide pads on my craft mat.  I sprayed the ink with water and smeared the card stock paper thru the ink.  I tapped the paper around until I was happy with the colors.  I let it dry, stamped my stamp, and cut out the leaves.

I glued the leaf to the Distress Resist background.  And I glued that to white paper like in the blog post I was following.  It felt weird to have a white boarder but I like it.  I thought the cards needed something so I added my "Hello Fall" stamp.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Try Something New LTCs

This is my card for brailleboxer's "Try something new" LTC swap.  My card is simply titled "wander."

My original idea was to paint a floral background with acrylic paint.  The only time I use acrylic paint is when using my gelli plate I thought it would be fun to paint a background.  But I wanted to add some texture and this card ending up being a mixture of cards I have made before.

Only one time before I used playing cards for my base and I did it again this time.  I glued down old text papers with Matt Gel medium.  Then I covered it with Gesso, laid down a stencil, and put the Gesso on in one area. 

Now I was ready to paint my abstract floral background.  But I got to thinking, if I paint with acrylic paint, it will cover the text papers.  I started experimenting with other things-watercolor paints, distress inks with a water brush, and distress crayons.

I really liked the bright colors of the distress crayons.  In the past, I had used the crayons more like watercolors.  But this time I colored with the crayons and smeared the color around a bit with a cotton ball. 

Try something new: wander.

I carved two stamps for this card, stamped them on vellum, and attached them with a small glue dot.  I am very happy with how my cards turned out. 

Just for fun, I left the Gesso off a few cards.  I like the look of them too. 

New/Underused Product Part 3

Drawing on the Gelli Plate.

Linden Leaf is hosting some different LTC swaps this year.  She posted them last year giving us plenty of time to learn, play, and work on our cards.  For the swap you are supposed to pick a new or underused product and use it in different ways to make four sets of cards.  I picked the Gelli Plate.  I have used my plate a few times but I thought I was not using it to its fullest.

I have said before that I work at a day care and I get inspiration there.  It seems that all the baby girls at the day care have blankets, sheets, sleepers, outfits, etc with the same floral pattern (from Target).  I like the design and colors from the set and it was my inspiration for these cards.

Pulling the prints.

This technique is super easy.  Take felt tip markers and draw on your plate.  I was a little concerned that scratching the marker on the plate would destroy it, but it did not.  Like all of these new/underused product swaps, I printed on card stock and text paper.  The text papers are a little busy but I still like it.

I don't really like this technique; it is very repetitive.  If you were making one or two tags, bookmarks, greeting cards... it would be nice.  But making 20 trading cards was very tedious.  I also don't understand why coloring on the gelli plate is even necessary.  What is the benefit to coloring on the plate instead of coloring straight on the paper?  

A side from using my gelli plate in four different ways, I am also stamping my cards in different ways.  For this one, I stamped my stamp and embossed it. Using an embossing pen and I did some of the leaves too.

Gelli Prints- Felt Tip Markers

I found this technique on Pinterest and HERE is the YouTube video.   

Here is the first New/Underused card I made:

https://wchristmas6.blogspot.com/2019/02/newunderused-product-part-1.html

Here is the second one: 

https://wchristmas6.blogspot.com/2019/05/newunderused-product-part-2.html

Cruising through the 90's

This is my LTC for Disney Addict's "Cruising through the 90's" tracker.  My card is called, "Standing outside the fire."  I named it after the big Garth Brooks song in the 90's.

Shaving cream & food coloring

For this swap you were supposed to make a card from a memory of the 90's.  I was in high school from 1993-1997 and like Disney Addict, it was cool in our town to cruse one strip of road.  I tried it a few times and decided that it wasn't for me.

When I was in middle school, my parents bought a river camp on the Ohio River.  My dad was always cutting down trees and burning the stumps.  He would have 2-3 fires going at a time to burn out the stumps.

I was the oldest in my circle of friends and when I got my drivers license, I brought them to the river camp. We would spend one night each weekend around a fire.  Some times we would just sit around and talk for hours.  Other times we would bring a radio so we could sing and dance to our favorite songs.

Cruising through the 90's:
Standing outside the fire

For this card, I carved my stamp, and stamped it to velum.  I attached it to the shaving cream background with a small glue dot.  Some of the background pages I made and others were leftover from a prize we got at the Shipwrecked on the Prairie event.  I used food coloring on mine and they were lighter.  Next time, I will try it with alcohol inks.  It is hard to see in the picture but the shaving cream layer is attached to brown paper for a small brown boarder.

I'm very happy with how my cards turned out and I plan to plant the stamp as a traditional box.

Keep Calm and Craft On

This is my card for aMAZEing adventure frogs "Summer Craft & Swap 2019."  I have been participating in these swaps for a while now.  The princess was in the mood to make cards so I signed her up first and I joined a little later.  I like these swaps because they have no theme.

I found the stamp image and tried to think of a fun way to make the card colorful and crafty.  I really like the bleeding tissue paper and this is my third time to use it.  I cut my cards to size, stamped them with a text stamp, got the cards wet, and laid down the tissue paper.  I let them sit for a little while and peeled the tissue paper off.  They sat over night to dry completely.

Then I stamped the stamp and embossed it with a black glittery embossing powder.  I punched two of the corners and attached the solid background paper.  I have a box of paper that I cut and didn't use on cards.  Sometimes I cut too much and sometimes I wanted the card to go in a different direction.  I decided that I would use up some of the already cut paper.  I ended up with many different color backgrounds.

Summer Craft & Swap: Keep Calm

I thought the cards needed something else and I added some sequins to the cards.  I also considered adding ribbon but decided that would be too much.  I'm very happy with how my cards turned out.



The Princess's card is called, "Yummy Lemonade."  She carved all of the stamp herself (I usually do the outside).  I cut the paper and she assembled them.  I teased her that she was copping my sweet tea shaker card.

Summer Craft & Swap: Yummy Lemonade

Boxing in Ohio

Prairie Props

This weekend we had a great time boxing in Ohio.  We went to Greenville for the 4th time and attended the Big Top on the Prairie event.  The event started at 9am (an hour earlier than last time) so Boxing Turtle, Daddy's Favorite Princess, and I got up at 3am.  The kids slept most of the way while I drove in the dark and rain.  We stopped once to potty and get breakfast.

We actually arrived at the event about 15 minutes early but there were a lot of other people already there.  We checked in and hit the trails.  They were calling for rain and we wanted to get boxes before it hit.

Boxing in the rain

It was a circus themed event and the the trails were for the three rings of the circus.  We did the first two rings.  The first one had a lot of mosquitoes but I don't think it was as bad as the Story Time on the Prairie year.  I'm pretty sure it was much worse that year!

After the first two rings of the circus we headed inside for lunch.  We were early so we stamped some of the inside boxes.  One of them, they had taken a box if wooden circus toys (kinda like a kids puzzle) and made stamps of the toys.  It was such a fun idea.  They also had people dressed up and walking around with stamps.  But we were focused on other stuff and didn't realize that you had to talk to them before noon to get the stamps.

Greenville Cemetery

After lunch was the raffle.  We didn't want to miss the raffle but wanted to get the last ring of the circus outside before the rain hit.  We left Boxing Turtle inside and the Princess and I went outside.  We probably got 5 boxes before it started to sprinkle.  We got them as fast as we could and went back inside where they were still calling names for the raffle.  The Princess won a fancy hair clip.

At this point we were finished with all of the official boxes for the event and started doing some exchanges.  Because of the rain, the room was pretty crowded.  Boxing Turtle was getting bored so we left to look for boxes in town.  We planted a box in the city park and found some in a local cemetery & GyspyLadybugs house.  We also stopped at a local ice cream place and looked for a box but could not find it.  Another boxer pulled up while we were looking so we all looked together.

Wet Spring Grove boxing

We headed south to Dayton where we would be staying the night.  We checked into the hotel, got dinner at the Cracker Barrel, and went to a nearby cemetery to look for 3 boxes.  We got the first one, struggling a bit because we are not used to using a compass.  We went to get the second one and it started pouring down rain.  We stopped and went back to the hotel.  We showered, logged finds, and watched some tv.

Spring Grove Cemetery

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, checked out, and went back to the nearby cemetery.  The found the second box were were looking for the night before and went looking for the third box.  They had a tornado recently in Dayton and the far corner of the cemetery had damage.  We believe the stone we were looking for had been knocked over on the box.

After that, we got a box on the way out of town by Safari Man and fill up with gas.  Next stop, Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.  I was very excited to box here.  I had heard so many good things about it and there were so many boxes to find.  We planned on spending a lot of time here and printed off 50 clues.  But it did not go well.  It rained, I got frustrated, and the kids were grumpy.  We only found 4 of the first 10 we looked for.

Spring Grove Cemetery

Then it stopped raining and our boxing got better.  We ending up finding 15 of 26 and 3 Hitchhikers.  Of course we had to plant a box here too. We also saw many animals while boxing-a fox, 4 turkeys, a baby skunk, chipmunks, squirrels, ducks, geese, and a hawk.  My original plan was to stay until 4 so that we were not getting home real late.  But at the end we got on a roll and stayed until almost 6.

Our grand total for the weekend (drum roll please) was 131 traditional boxes, 5 Hitchhikers, and some exchanges & table tops!  I took a quick look at my stats for 2019, I have 221 finds.  My next highest year was 2015 with 225 boxes.  Unless all my local boxers fall off the face of the earth, this year will be my highest finds yet <3

PAL Day 2019

Indiana Military Museum, Vincennes, In

This year is the 14th Annual International Plant a Letterbox (PAL) Day.  PAL was May 25th but Lil Ewok, Daddy's Favorite Princess and I, went out May 18th and planted 7 boxes.  We went camping in the area back in October and thought some of the cities that we went thru on the way home needed letterboxes.

We started off in Vincennes, which is about an hour north of us.  We planted our box in a cemetery near the Indiana Military Museum.  We have not been to this museum but my husband keeps talking about it.  My husband works in Vincennes a lot.

Inside the birdhouse paradise, Loogootee, In

Then we headed east to Washington.  They have a huge park and we panted a box there.  This one may not last very long.  The park was very nice and busy and I just have a feeling that it will be found.  They were having an event the day were there but there were no people in the area that he hid our box.

The next box we planted was in a cemetery right on the highway near Montgomery.  This is Amish country and this was an Amish themed box.  We have eaten at a few of these Amish restaurant and they are very good.

Outside the birdhouse paradise

We discovered the next location when looking at geocaches in the area.  The place is called Birdhouse Paradise in Loogootee.  He has 6,000+ hand painted birdhouses.  His property also has painted rocks, statues, painted trees, bridges, steps, etc.  He says that people come from all over to see his birdhouses; school groups, geocachers, tour buses, etc.  Everyone who stops by gets a free birdhouse.

Fire tower at Martin State Forest

When we left the Birdhouse Paradise we went for lunch at Bo Mac's in Shoals.  We had stopped here in October and thought it needed a box.  We hid a small box in fence and enjoyed some burgers.  Bo Mac's doesn't have a restroom, we used the one at the gas station next door and got some snacks for the road.

We like climbing fire towers and we knew there was one at Martin State Forest just down the road.  It was a short walk from the car to the tower.  We planted the box at the base but had to climb the tower.  Lil Ewok only made it half way but the princess and I went to the top.  I think this fire tower is taller than the ones we have closer to home.  We enjoyed the climb, the view, and the breeze at the top.

Jug Rock, Shoals, In

Because we stopped for lunch we missed one of the placed we wanted to plant at.  We went back and planted a box at Jug Rock in Shoals.  This is an interesting rock formation that the kids liked trying to climb.  We should have did this box first because our legs were so shaky from climbing the fire tower I wasn't sure if I was going to make it.

On PAL Day itself I planted a box in a Little Free Pantry/Blessing Box.  There are no Little Free Libraries on my side of town but I drive by the Blessing Box every day.  I hope to stop by regularly and leave some canned goods.

We had a great time planting our PAL Day boxes.  The weather was beautiful and kids were pretty good.  Unfortunately, my leg muscles ached for 3 days after climbing the fire tower. I also got a small patch of poison ivy on my leg.  My 8 boxes were the only boxes planted in Indiana for PAL Day :(  There was a total of 106 letterboxes planted on PAL Day, which is the worst PAL Day count ever. 

Aliens & Woodstock

We are not alone...: Abduction

 This is my card for Gypsy Fiddler's "We are not alone..." LTC swap.  My card is called, "Abduction."  I wanted to make a stamp of a Bigfoot and spaceship but I liked this image better.  I stamped the stamp in yellow ink and embossed with glow in the dark embossing powder.  I sent the stamp off to a space themed event.

Snoopy's Sidekick:
Whistling Woodstock

This next card is for Jiffy's "Snoopy's Sidekick" LTC swap.  My card is called, "Whistling Woodstock."  I stamped my stamp on watercolor paper and colored it with Distress Inks and a water brush pen.  I was torn on weather to use music paper on the background or tie dye.  I didn't have enough tie dye paper to do all the cards but found some while I was at the craft store.  I also sent this stamp off to a Woodstock Anniversary event. 

New/Underused Product Part 2

Linden Leaf is hosting some different LTC swaps this year.  She posted them last year giving us plenty of time to learn, play, and work on our cards.  For the swap you are supposed to pick a new or underused product and use that in different ways to make four sets of cards.  I picked the Gelli Plate.  I had 2 Gelli Plates and I have used them a few times but I thought I was not using it to its fullest.  I liked the bigger of the 2 plates best, so I donated the smaller one to work.

The swap was posted in September with the due date in May.  I took advantage of a Saturday in November with nothing going on and made my cards for the first two swaps.  I found this technique in Pinterest and here is the YouTube video if you want to watch. 

I tried this technique and could not get it to work.  I tried text from 3 magazines (recipes, calendars, articles, etc) and when that didn't work, I rummaged in the attic and found an old college text book.  I tried it multiple times and only got a small area of text one of the times.  I don't know what the issue was but I would like to try again in the future.

Plan B- layers in one step.  This is more like what I would traditionally do with a Gelli Plate but you do it all at once.  Normally, I would put down some paint with a design and pull a print.  Then put down a different color paint with a fancy design and pull a print on top of the first, etc.   

This technique is very easy.  You basically roll some paint on the plate then you can stamp stamps/texture plates with or without paint on them.  You can transfer paint and designs from one area to another with stamps/texture plates.

One of the things I enjoyed most was making my own texture things.  I made a hot glue stamp, wadded up a plastic grocery bag, and tore an outside layer off corrugated cardboard. 

Like my last card, you let the paint dry and cover it with a very thin layer of transparent/fluid acrylic paint.  Then you pull your print.  Ta da!   This go round I pulled my prints on card stock and text paper.

When the paint was dry I cut my cards to size and stamped my stamp directly to the paper.  Like I said in my last post, I wanted a glossy finish.  So, I covered the card with glossy Mod Podge.  Once that was dry, I glued it to the black background.  Here is the YouTube video of this technique, if you want to watch a pro.

New/Underused Product: Gelli Prints-
One print, many layers

My Gelli Plate is 8x10 and one of the things I love is the white/blank edge left from the paper being larger than the plate.  I try really hard to cut the prints in a way to use as much of that edge as possible.  I don't know why I like it so much.  You think my OCD would be the opposite.  

Anyway, I'm really happy with this set of cards.  I just got my cards back from the first of these swaps (today is 3/14).  I really enjoyed all the cards and reading/learning about different techniques.  I'm really glad I joined these swaps <3

Here is the first New/Underused card I made:

https://wchristmas6.blogspot.com/2019/02/newunderused-product-part-1.html