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.

Christmas Cookies LTC

Holiday Cookie Exchange II:
Christmas Monster Cookie

I am in Sheep Thrills LTC swap, "Holiday Cookie Exchange II".  My recipe is for Christmas Monster Cookies and we make them every year.

I typed my recipe, printed them on regular paper, and cut them to size.  I stamped my stamps on card stock, attached them with a tape runner, but added the Christmas cookie washi tape to spruce them up.

I carved the stamps for a traditional series in 2015 and retired earlier this year (2018).  A few years ago someone started sending out LTCs of ingredients.  Once you got all the ingredients you were supposed to guess what it was and the winner got a prize.  Something happened and the person stopped sending out the cards.  I thought it was a great idea and planted a traditional series like it.

For my series I made 12 stamps.  There were 8 ingredients, a timer, the thing you were making, something to wash it down, and a friend to share with.  The recipe was for chocolate chip cookies and I planted the series on National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.

A few months ago I got reports that some of the stamps were missing.  When I went to retire the boxes I could only find half of them.  I was surprised at how much some of the woods had grown since I was last there.  I would like to go back this winter and look for some of them again.

HERE is the recipe for the cookies.  I print recipes off Pinterest and put them in a binder.  When I went looking for this one I discovered that I had printed it off twice, oops.  I hope the people receiving the recipe enjoy the Christmas Monster Cookies as much as I do :)

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 :)

Dandelion LTCs

Bleeding Tissue Paper on Watercolor Paper

 This is my card for AdventurousAcorn's "Silly Holidays 2019" LTC swap.  I joined and went to see if there were an silly holidays on my birthday.  My birthday is April 5th and according to www.holidayinsights.com that day is "Go for Broke Day", "National Dandelion Day", and "National Walk to Work Day" (first Friday in April).

As you can see, I picked National Dandelion Day.  I thought it would be fun to plant this as a traditional box on my birthday. 

This is the second time that I have used this background technique but you won't see the first blog post until the end of the year.  I did it a little different this go round.  I cut the cards to size, cut bleeding tissue paper in one inch squares, "paint" water on the card, lay the bleeding tissue paper down, and put some more water on top. 

Silly Holidays 2019: National Dandelion Day

 Let the cards dry for 15-20 minutes, peel the tissue paper away, and let the cards dry completely.  I punched the corners, stamp my stamp, mounted to yellow textured scrapbook paper, and added some text. 

I'm happy with how the cards turned out.  I mention in my future blog post about this background that you can not use plain tissue paper.  I tried it and it just barley left some color on the paper.  I really like this technique; it is fun and easy to do. 

Christmas Ornaments 2018 Part 2

I recently got my Letterboxing Christmas Ornaments and I love them.  People are so creative! 

One person burned all the participants signature stamp on a wood slice.  At first I thought it was just a coincidence that the ornament had the same snowman as my sig stamp.  But in the clue for the ornament they put a pic of all the ones they made. 

Parody LTC

Parody: (Weight's Goin) Up Down, Up Down

This is my card for ebda's "Parody" tracker, it is called, "(Weight's Goin) Up Down, Up Down."

I like the Morgan Wallen/Florida Georgia Line song, Up Down.  A few months ago, I heard a radio DJ talking about a parody of the song.  As soon as I got home I looked for it on YouTube.  The song is (Weight's Goin) Up Down, Up Down by Cledus T Judd and I loved it.  I can't tell you how many times I have watched the video.

I carved the stamps, stamped them, colored them with colored pencils, cut them out, glued down the tea, and attached the chicken and donuts with foam squares.  My card looked better in my head.  I should have used a different color on the chicken but I was too lazy to stamp new ones.  I also should have made a border for the cards.  Oh well.