Pirate LTCs

My inspiration 

Back in August someone posted a pirate postal tracker.  I was excited about the theme but I just don't have the patience waiting for postals to come around.  So, I hosted a pirate LTC swap.

My first idea was to carve an octopus pirate.  But as I was looking at images, I found a Life is Good pirate.  If you know me, I love carving Life is Good images.

Regular tissue paper

I had my stamp image but I needed a background.  In the description of the swap I encourage participants to try something new.  I couldn't use my standard alcohol inks.  I work in a day care and everyday I walk past a framed piece of art that was my inspiration.

Just by looking at the art at work, I thought you cut up tissue paper, "paint" water on your paper, lay down the tissue paper, and let it dry.  As you can see above, that doesn't work.  I got on Pinterest to see what I did wrong.  Apparently, you have to use bleeding tissue paper.  Who knew?

Bleeding tissue paper

I ordered some online, cut it with the hexagon punch, and "paint" the water under and over the tissue paper.  Then you let it sit a bit, peal the paper off, and let it dry.  It was basically love at first sight.  I was a little disappointed with the white spots but I got over it right away when I started stamping my image.

Seas The Day LTCs

Originally, I was going to stamp and emboss my image with brown, because blue and brown go well together.  But then I got to thinking that since it was pirate theme I should emboss in black.

I am very happy with how these cards turned out.  I already plan to use this technique again.  You will actually see that post before you see this one :P

Happy New Year!

The Princess and I spent the first day of 2019 letterboxing and geocaching.  On New Years Day we planted four boxes, one of them being our Secret Santa stamp.  We also looked for local GeoArt.  They were hybrid boxes planted by geocachers.  The art made a Batman symbol.  We got 26 the first day and I went out after the other 30 on the first Saturday of the year.  Of the 56 hybrid boxes only ten of them still had their stamps :(

Planting on 1/1/19

Also on that first Saturday, I went after some traditional letterboxes.  Two of them were planted on New Years Day.  When I was finished with the two new boxes and the 30 hybrids, I went after 5 boxes planted at Scales Lake by people attending the GLG.  Someone recently planted another box at Scales Lake.  I looked for it and couldn't find it.  I think I finally have found/looked for all the boxes at Scales Lake. 

At the end of year, I usually do a recap post.  My traditional plants in 2018 were pretty average.  If you don't count the boxes I planted for my event in 2016, the last 3 years I have planted 28 boxes each year.  Funny how that worked out.  My find count for 2018 was average.  My LTC plants and finds were down in 2018.  I started working in September 2017 and I have less time to make LTCs now.

I don't set boxing goals.  I am looking forward to the Big Top on the Prairie event in Ohio.  I have already set money aside for the hotel room.  I also plan on attending an event at a nearby state park in May.  It will be hosted by the same boxers who put on the GLG last year.  My boxing buddy says we need to go box in Louisville.  That will help add some stamps to my logbook :)

As for planting boxes, I have a plan for 2019.  Last year I joined a LTC swap for silly holidays.  When I joined I made a card for a silly holiday on my birthday thinking I would hide it on my special day.  I then I got to thinking it would be fun to hide more silly holidays.  I plan to hide one silly holiday each month in 2019.

There has been talk on the AQ boards of a Power Plant Challenge.  If you plant at least ten permanent traditional boxes between Nov 1st and April 30th, you get a Power Plant Patch <3  If everything goes as planned, I will have 20 boxes planted by the end of April :)

I hope everyone has a safe, happy, and healthy new year :)

Thanksgiving LTC

ThanksgivING: Track #1 Amazing Grace

This is my card for Team Awesome Pants's "ThanksgivING" LTC swap.  It is called, "Track #1."

For the swap, TAP made a Praise and Worship CD.  When you sign up, you send her a number and she sends you the name of that track.  You make a card to go along with the song you get.  At the end of the swap you get a copy of the CD and all the LTCs.  This is my third time to participate in one of these swaps. 

The first two times I got songs I didn't know.  This third go around I got lucky; I got Amazing Grace.  I joined the swap about 2 weeks before it started and I thought making my card would be easy.  I looked online for some pretty Amazing Grace calligraphy and was over whelmed with so many choices.  I finally picked one and carved my stamp.

For the background, I really liked the look of my stamp on the wood plank paper in the bottom right of the photo but I only had enough of it to make a few cards.  I started looking for other wood paper but the other one that I liked was kind of dark.  I decided to lighten it up by stamping my stamp on vellum.  I like how they turned out and I am sending the stamp off to TAP to plant.

Sometimes I make quisps that go with the themes of my cards and send them along in the card sleeves.  This time I carved a cross made from 3 nails.  I stamped it on old hymn paper and embossed it with gold embossing powder.