Red White & Blue

Red White & Blue: Papaw's River

This is my card for the "Red White & Blue" LTC swap.  My parents have a river camp on the Ohio River and we spend a lot of time there in the summer.  On the 4th of July we always go out and watch the fireworks from the boat.

All of my kids have called the Ohio River- "Papaw's" River.  I have even heard my cousins kids talk about "Uncle Bill's" River.

I carved this stamp a few years ago when I hid stamps at the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival.  It is noting fancy but I really enjoyed making this card :)

Gnome Day 2014

I have been so busy that I forgot to blog about Gnome Day.  It was Saturday and we were out of town most of the day so we planted our box on Thursday.  But someone planted a box for us!

On Sunday we found Gnome Day 2014: Friendship.  And it had a gnome hitchhiker.  It is so exciting to a find a new box in our own backyard.

In the pic-Daddy's Favorite Princess is playing with gloves from the bag, Lego Clone Trooper is stamping, and R2-D2 is playing with the compass.  Lil Ewok had fallen asleep so he and noxer hubby stayed in the van.

Exploring & Planting at Eagle Slough

Eagle Sloug

This is the second year that we have participated in the GAQLBE.  The people we were paired with said that they had children who liked Star Wars.  And I have children who like Star Wars so we decided to swap Star Wars stamps.  We sent them an AT AT Walker and they sent us a BIG Yoda.

I grew up in 80's and I am used to the old Star Wars and Yoda living in a swamp.  We already have several boxes in the local wetlands so we needed to look for another spot for our new stamp.  This afternoon the kids and I headed out to Eagle Slough.  We had never been here before and it was fancier than I thought it would be with lots of resting benches, trail markers, tree ID signs, etc.

I "Googled" slough and it says that it is a swap.  I thought it had to do with the movement of the river.  The Ohio River used to come higher into Indiana and we have several sloughs in this area.  Howell Wetlands and Hovey Lake are both sloughs.

Wetland area

Anyway, we enjoyed walking the trails at the slough but finding a good hiding spot for our box was tricky.  Like I said before the box was pretty big.  The stamp itself is almost 4x5.  So we had to find a hiding spot that was big enough for the box and would not float away in the annual floods in the area.

I think our spot is okay but we put a rock on it to help it stay put.  I will defiantly come back and check it later in the year.  This may need to be a late spring/summer/fall only box.  We will see.

Here is the website about the Eagle Slough if you would like more info :)
http://www.eagleslough.org/

Flowering Trees LTC

Can't wait for Spring: Flowering Trees 

I am in the LTC swap "Can't Wait for Spring."  I wasn't going to join this one because I had already made some spring cards and a summer card and I was ready to start thinking about a fall card.  But I felt like another boxer twisted my arm.

For a while I have been thinking about carving a stamp of a bare tree and using it for different seasons.  I had already carved it and was working on a different project when I decided I would use it for this swap.

So I stamped my tree on plain white card stock and I carved up a tiny birdhouse.  For the flowers and leaves I used pencil erasers.  Then I  mounted the whole thing to some green paper.

I like how this one and the summer one turned out.  I will work on the winter one next.  I am in a swap where you have to reuse a stamp you already have.  I was going to do something completely different but I can't find the stamp I had in mind so I think I will do the winter version of this tree for that.  You'll have to wait a little bit to see that one :)

PAL Day 2014

PAL Day was Saturday and I sure hope someone somewhere enjoyed it.  I planted two boxes and only one counted :(

Tin Man Brewery/Restaurant 

The first one was the Tin Man Brewery box that I made LTCs for.  It has already had it's first finder.  I am running an experiment with this box and it is going commando.  We will see how it goes.  Double bagging is big here.

 As for my second box, the clue was too old.  I started the clue and carved the stamp back in the fall but forgot about them.  I found them about a month ago and decided to plant them on PAL Day.  I made the logbook and spray painted the box the week of PAL Day.  Then planted it on Friday and listed it on Saturday.

Boehne Camp TB Hospital just before it was tore down. 

I planted it where an old TB hospital used to be.  It had been torn down several years ago but I think the location is interesting.  Also, back in the fall we had some TB drama in the Christmas family.

My oldest son was getting ready for middle school and had to get vacations.  He also had a TB skin test and it was positive.  We had the whole family tested and I was also positive.  He and I also had blood work and another skin test and they were all negative.

This was such a long, drawn out ordeal.  We had to deal with the pediatrician and health dept.  We ended up leaving the pediatrician that we have been with for 11 years because of how she treated the people at the health dept and her refusal to order a blood test for my son.

So, officially Indiana had 2 boxes planted on PAL Day.  I could have deleted my old clue and started another but with our number so low I choose not to.

My questions is, what happened to PAL Day?  Was everyone to busy with the holiday weekend to plant?  Did everyone boycott because of the new stricter rules?  I know Indiana normally has low numbers but the whole country is low.  According to the PAL Day widget it is the second lowest turn out ever with only 297 boxes.  The first year is the only one with a lower number at 269.

Lost a square or miscounted :)

I have been blogging and boxing less simply because there is nothing around me to find.  I started the quilt that I talked about a few posts back.  This summer I would like to box in Paducah, Ky (about 2 hrs away).  They have a quilt museum there and I hope to plant a box near by.  My kids are so excited about my quilt that I will make them all one too.  Not this design though.

I hope everyone has a fun safe summer :)

Mother's Day 2014

Suspension Bridge to many of the trails

Every Mother's Day weekend we go camping!  My parents have been going since before I was born.  This year we went to Turkey Run State Park.

We had a great time.  The weather was pretty good.  It rained Saturday night but it was warm enough on Sunday to dry stuff out.

Dad & Lil Ewok playing in the creek

Our camp sites were near the playground which the kids enjoyed.  They also liked the hikes.  We walked trail 3 & 7 over the weekend.  For both of the trails you have to walk in a creek bed.  The kids loved that!

Kids stopping to rest along the trail

We also went canoeing.  It was only 3.5 miles but they kids really got a kick out of it.  The baby fell asleep during the trip and my oldest son wanted to go some more.

The letterboxing part of the weekend was bad.  I printed off 6 clues and we only found 2 boxes.  We planted our 4th annual Mother's Day box which was good.

Before the baby fell asleep

We had a good trip and will defiantly go back to Turkey Run again :)

Letterboxing 

Hitchhiker Hustle IV & V

HHH4: Daffodils

 I LOVE HITCHHIKERS :)  So I am in the Hitchhiker Hustle 4&5 swaps.

For HHH4, I was digging in my carving material scrap bucket and found this daffodil stamp that I carved but never cut away from the block.  It is small so I used it for this swap.

I like the look of text pages on LTCs so I cut up some more pages, stamped the stamp in a clear embossing ink pad, and embossed it with yellow embossing powder.  I wanted to do the opposite-stamp the stamp in yellow ink and use clear embossing powder but my yellow ink pad was yucky.

Then I rubbed the distress ink in the card.  I bought the fancy rubber a while ago but never used it.  The distress ink does not stick to the embossed flower.  I really like how they turned out and I will probably use this technique again :)

About HHH5, I am also in the Lepidoptera (aka butterflies/moths) swap and I have butterflies on the brain.  I carved up my stamp for the butterfly swap but carved another one for this swap too.

HHH5: Blue Butterfly

This card is pretty simple.  I stamped the butterfly in black ink on blue paper.  For the yellow background, I used a dry embossing machine.  I got one for my birthday.  This is the first time I have used it but I am looking forward to playing with it more.  I have been thinking about color wheels and that is why I put the blue & yellow together.

I hope these guys have a long and well traveled life :)