Spoilers Darling!

With respect to River Song (of Dr. Who), I want to warn any readers who may do letterboxing and who may potentially be getting any LTC's (Letterboxer Trading Cards) from me that images of some of my LTC's are posted below. (Although not all of them....some of them are so new I haven't gotten them mailed out, or even quite finished!)

Since my very first card is actually retired, all the copies that are going to be out there are already out there....so I'll start with it.

The card is titled "For Nellie" and is an owl carved in memory of the owl that visited me on the day my grandmother passed away. For the background paper, I used a photo I had taken of bare trees a few winters ago.



Here are the others in no particular order:


American Pickers (this stamp now resides in the American Pickers box in Le Claire, IA. It was carved entirely by use of Exacto knife alone.)


Carved for a "newbie" swap...and sadly may be lost forever (the cards, not the stamp).

I carved these two Frank Lloyd Wright images just for fun. I also carved a chair he designed, but haven't done anything with that stamp yet.





A carve I did for a donation to someone's "rootbeer" series.

Here's one of the three stamps in my coffee houses series planted here in town. I made some LTC's with one stamp before putting it out in the wild!



A 'double wide' card done for an exchange involving favorite vacation memories. This one hasn't been distributed yet....so hopefully no spoilers!


Carved for an exchange that is still in progress. The stamp was sent to New Zealand and I will be interested to see what other images it leads to! (It is a carving of Pele, Hawaiian goddess of fire and dance who reigns over the Big Island where Kona coffee is grown!)


Drinks of Summer exchange. I received some really AWESOME cards back from others on this....many of which included recipes!


Finally, here's Max from Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Carved for an exchange of Dr. Seuss characters. I can't wait to see what I get in return!!

As I said, I have several other LTC's done and some more in the works. I will post more another time....but I suspect that's enough for now!

Happy boxing!

Stamp Carving

One of my blogging friends inquired about the tools I used to carve the stamps I've been creating. I started with just an exacto knife. Since those first few stamps, I also added this set of carving tools from Staedtler:



I found them at my local "big box" hobby and craft store and used my 40% off coupon which made the whole set very reasonable. As it turns out, with practice, I'm discovering that I really only use 2 of the 3 tools in conjuntion with my handy little knife.

The other tool, which has enabled me to carve more intricate designs was a tip I got from one of the several web tutorials I used: the highest powered reading glasses I could find at the dollar store. (I think mine are +3.50.) My normal readers are +1.75, but for seeing minute details in the pattern, the mega-magnifiers do the trick.

One of the best websites I used for tutorials (which also led me to other on-line information) was on Atlas Quest, one of the two main letterboxing sites.

Hope this helps for anyone else who wants to join the addic...I mean fun!

One Thing Led to Another

So, if you've been following this blog, you will know that we discovered geocaching when I received a GPS receiver designed for the sport for Christmas. Our love of getting out to discover new caches and new outdoor spots led me to discover letterboxing as well.

And if you know me, you know that when I discover something cool, I tend to jump in with both feet.

This, then, is my true confession...



I have been obsessively carving stamps for letterboxing (and for fun!) for the past few weeks!

It started with dollar packs of two pink erasers from Target and 12-pack white erasers for $1 at the Dollar Tree and an exacto knife. The photo you see is missing four stamps I carved. Two of them are already gracing letterboxes which have been placed at local cemeteries along with 2 other stamps which were the "First to Find" prizes in those caches. (I'm trying to get some other people in the area interested in letterboxing or letterbox hybrid caches in geocaching. I LOVE the artistic aspect of carving your own stamps!!)

I have used some of the stamps to make some Letterboxer Trading Cards (LTCs) which are akin to Artist Trading Cards. I've even done some trading with other letterboxers for cards.

I have several "signature" stamps with our trail name (helms2049) on them for stamping into logbooks. I've also done some for the series of gravestone symbols I'm doing in area cemeteries. I've done a couple of owls to memorialize my grandmother. Three on a Frank Lloyd Wright series and 4 for a planned letterbox series at local coffee shops.

So, that's what I've been up to! (It's SOOO addictive!!)