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.