Secret Santa Stamps

I believe this is my 9th year to participate in the Secret Santa stamp swap.  Bungalow Boxer had my name and send a pinecone/needle stamp, an awesome logbook, and some chocolates.  

I actually met Bungalow Boxer early this year.  She was passing thru town on her way to an event, and asked if I wanted to get together for an exchange.  It was fun getting a surprise from someone I recently met.   While in the area, she planted some boxes and I got them on Spring Break.

I am looking for a good place with pine trees to hide my stamp.  I wanted to stop and look at a cemetery yesterday but my family said no :(

I had Sherlock Miles and her sent this detective stamp I carved and a few LTCs.

Merry Christmas to all!  

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

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 :)

2018 Secret Santa Stamps

Secret Santa Stamp by christmaspickle

My Secret Santa Stamp arrived earlier this week.  It was carved by christmaspickle.  I thought it was cool that I was put with another Christmas person.

They sent this "InSight MARS" stamp.  A card included says, "This carve is in honor of NASA's recent Mars exploration mission: Insight.  This is a modification of the mission logo."

My Secret Santa Stamp to Celcilia57

I sent my stamp on to Cecilia57.  In the interview part of her profile page on Atlas Quest, she says that when she grew up she wanted to be a Marine Biologist and her favorite animal is a sea otter.  I was very nervous about carving the bubbles on the otter stamp but they turned out pretty well.

This is my 7th year to participate in the Secret Santa stamp swap.  Last year I planted my stamp on New Years Day and as long as the weather is decent, I plan to do that again this time.  Merry Christmas :)

Secret Santa Stamp

This year my Secret Stamp Santa is Brandy.  She carved this cute penguin stamp.  I'll look for a place to hide it this winter :)

I mentioned before about getting a tree for my letterboxing ornaments.  I dug around in the basement and found one.  It had shot gun shell lights on it but the Princess stole them.  This tree has ornaments from 2 years of participating in the swap.  I am signed up for next year and already have an idea I want to try.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year <3

Secret Santa Stamps

This is my 5th year to participate in the Secret Santa stamp swap.  The 1st year we got an awesome Santa stamp that we planted near Santa Claus, Indiana.  The 2nd year we got a tiny frog stamp that we sent off as a hitchhiker.  The 3rd year we received a stamp of Charlie Brown, Snoopy & tree, that has recently gone missing.  Last year we got a Gingerbread man, that we sent out as a hitchhiker.

This year our Secret Santa was RideTheMoose (fun trail name).  She sent these cool stamps AND some chocolates!  One of the great things about these stamps is that they were carved on materials that I have never seen before.  The white one is labeled, "seed" and I don't know what the pink one is.  They are both much thicker than Speedball pink.

I will probably plant the strawberry in the spring and the leaf guy in the fall.  Thank you RideTheMoose :)

Pre-Thanksgiving Leftovers and Secret Santa

I know I am a little late getting this post out.  I participated in TAP's Pre-Thanksgiving Leftover LTC swap.  I was hoping that she would do a "post" swap too and I would do one blog for both.  But my husband had a hunting accident the day before Thanksgiving, we spent 3 days in the hospital that was an hour from home, and there is no way I could have worked on cards if she did two swaps.  But I took pics to make a blog post so here it is.

The background for this card was really fun to make :)  I got the idea on Pinterest, of course.  I made a stencil out of hot glue on my fancy craft mat.  I stuck half of a sheet of paper behind the mat so I knew how big to make my stencil.

You let the glue dry/harden and pull it up.  I tried this with regular and glossy card stock.  I sprayed fall colored alcohol inks on.  For the regular card stock I also sprayed a little water.  I liked the regular card stock best.

Pre-Thanksgiving Leftovers-
Proud Pumpkin

For these "left over" swaps you are supposed to use only materials that you have on hand.  So, I can't tell you what colors I used because they were already in the spray bottles.  I ran out of hot glue making my stencil but lucky my husband had some in his garage.

I just got a new sewing machine and I wanted to try it out on this project.  I played around with it a few different ways.  I wanted to do a zig zag stitch but thought it was to busy.  I still think it needs something...

Secret Santa stamp from Porras Posse 

I got my stamp from my AQ Secret Santa!  Porras Posse sent me this cute gingerbread man, stamp pouch, and logbook.  I think I am going to send him off as a Hitchhiker.  I love Hitchhikers :)

Christmas

Thank you Book Hoarder :)

Yesterday I got my stamp from my Secret Santa and I love it.  This is my 4th Peanuts stamp and it goes right with the Christmas postcard I made this year.  However, I am not sure what to do with it.  I would like to use it as a PT or event box but we rarely go to events/meet other boxers.  I also think it would be cool to plant them all as traditional boxes but there are only 2-3 active boxers here.  I will probably make some LTCs and think about it some more.

Speaking of my Christmas postcard, I dropped the last batch off at the post office this morning!  If you count the 10 that I send off for the tracker, I have mailed out more than 130 of these suckers.  Wow, more than I expected.  It seemed like every time I sat down to work on them another new address showed up.  So, if you haven't gotten one yet (and you think I have your addy) it could be in the batch I sent out today. 

Lil Ewok with his favorite nativity, Charlie Brown. 

Lastly, we had a Christmas miracle over the weekend.  Someone other than me planted a letterbox in my city.  Woo hoo!  It was a store bought stamp but beggars can't be choosers right?  And they were serving cookies so that makes up for the stamp.

The box was planted at a church having a large creche (nativity) display.  The gym of the church was filled with all different ones.  Large, small, wood, glass, ceramic, from other countries, etc.  It was really cool.  Lil Ewok and I enjoyed the displays, cookies, and letterbox.  

 I hope everyone has a very awesome Christmas!

Secret Santa

I got my Secret Santa stamp today.  It is a cute little frog from Pink Cookie.  Since it is tiny I will probably send it off as a HH or cootie.  Thanks :)
Merry Christmas!

Secret Santa

Check out this great stamp we got from our Secret Santa.  Thank you turkey feathers :)