Don't Ask

Remember the fuss about the Fearless Colon? Well, back at the time all that was going on, I really wanted to participate in the related trading card swap, but was overwhelmed with other commitments at the time.
But that's not the kind of thing that one's brain can let go of all that easily. Hence I give you (albeit, four months too late), the Spastic Colon Card:

In case you were wondering, I was intentionally trying to create a card that was "a little bit off"; something you're eye didn't exactly relish looking at. After all, in reality a spastic colon is a painful thing. The card does look slightly better in person, but not much. How did I do?

Yes, Fluffy, its on it's way.

A Puzzle for the 4th

Last night I stumbled upon the perfect LTC to share today, and since it looks like it is going to rain on our parade, I have time.
Quite some time ago, I made a number of LTC puzzles (and here are two more). Well, one of them didn't get quite finished. They are still sitting in a box and only need some minor assembly and they would be ready for trade (hint, hint).
When I get this one listed it will be Jigsaw Puzzles: I Love America, or something like that. It is difficult to tell, but the pocket has fireworks embossed in an iridescent, sparkly ink on it.
This LTC uses all recycled stamps. The USA stamp was from the International Triple postal project, Global Housewarming. It made it's way around the US, Canada, and the UK before coming home. The fireworks were part of one of my Periodic Table trading cards; Phosphorus, to be exact.

I wish everyone a happy, safe Independence Day!

Card to end all Trading Cards

Undoubtedly, the Periodic Table LTC ring was a big project. Like many others, for weeks I was consumed with carving, cutting, inking, assembling, and labeling. There were days when I thought it would never end. Little did I know that a bigger project lay in my future. That project began when 3 Blind Mice invited me to join their Challenge Ring (for the 3rd time) and I finally relented. Since I was again planning to take the Summer off from trading card production, I decided to do it up big. This would be the trading card to end all trading cards. It was going to be three dimensional and interactive, and contain a really great carve. What followed pushed me to the limits of my ability and occasionally, sanity.
At my daughter's suggestion (and with my DH's support), I decided to attempt to recreate The TARDIS in LTC form. For those of you who are unaware, the TARDIS is Doctor Who's time machine/spaceship/thingy (in his words). It looks like a Police Call Box and is bigger on the inside (hence, the ltc's name). I won't bore you with all of the Sci-Fi geek details. You either already know, or you're not likely to care. But here are some specifics of the trading card itself:
It has one inconspicuous stamp on the outside, plus two stickers to give it an authentic look. The windows are each hand cut and lined with transparency film to give it a shiny, but frosted glass look. Open the door and a sound card activates and you can hear one of Doctor Who's famous quotes; which you can listen to here, if you like. The first 10 seconds are on the card. It was my intention for the light on top to light up at the same time, but I quickly discovered that soldering electronic components is way harder than it looks. Sadly, but not before some brick-headed stubborness, I had to give up on that element as the deadline loomed.
On the inside of the card are two stamp images: one of David Tennant, my favorite Doctor Who yet; and the key to the TARDIS (which stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space, btw).

A true Who geek will know that this is not David Tennant's key. However, it was more interesting to carve, so I went retro. It is, after all, a Time Machine.

And there you have it. My Challenge card. The carves themselves, while not particularly challenging, were ones that I have wanted to do for some time. The hurdles for me were more logistics and the technical aspects of actually making the thing work. And not breaking the bank in the process. And losing sleep over it. And keeping my fingers cross that they would still work when they arrived at their destinations.
And with that, I am taking the summer off from trading cards. If you need me, I'll be on Gallifrey.

~Al Fin~

LTC Spoiler Alert!!!

It took about two months longer than I had anticipated, but I am extremely happy to announce that the last of the Rainbow Pixies is finally completed. They have been dragged several thousand miles across country in an effort to get them done whenever I had a spare moment to work on them, but the job is complete at last. Any of the cards that I owe will be in envelopes in the mail no later than Wednesday. Additional trades will be arranged shortly thereafter.

As a side note, I should mention that the 6 year old has already found another set of pictures that she thinks would make great stamps. And of course, she's right. But there is more than a dozen of them and my head hurts just thinking about it. She has a letterboxer's eye, if nothing else, and is beginning to want to go out with me. At our favorite nursery yesterday, she saw some really cool boxes and mentioned that they would make great letterbox containers just as I was thinking the same thing myself. Between the two of us, we will never lack for ideas, that's for sure!!

Chicken Licken

The second card in the Fairyland Playstage series is Chicken Licken. The pictures don't quite do it justice, in my opinion. The front of the card is the stage, or just a simple oak tree and pretty background. Incidentally, this oak tree stamp gets a lot of use around here.
From inside the card, all of the characters can be pulled out on translucent ribbons (similar to the 3 Billy Goats Gruff card) and the story can be acted out. Included with the card are the acorn that started the whole thing, Chicken Licken, Ducky Lucky, Turkey Lurky, and Foxy Loxy. The King is represented only by a small stamp image on the back of the card (not shown).
There were no add-ons for this card.

I have one other card in this series planned, but am having a booger of a time finding images that I want to carve. It's not that they don't exist. It's that they don't match what I have in my mind's eye. Humph.

Owls and Turtles

More spoilers! But if you haven't figured out not to look yet...

This first card is just something simple and fun that I put together when I needed a break from the Pixies. This stamp was created when working on photos for a carving tutorial that may make it's way onto AQ at some point.

Awhile ago, someone did a ring called Then & Now. I thought it was a great idea to create cards that featured an older carve and something new, but I could not participate at the time. Just before Christmas, I made these cards. They feature my Letterbox Turtle stamp, which was my very first carve ever and another turtle that I carved just for the card.

That's all for now! The rest of the Pixies are still forthcoming, but I got an order for some embroidery that I need to finish first, so it might be a couple of weeks.

High Maintenance Pixies

Caution: This post contains LTC spoilers!

Several weeks ago, the six year old discovered some pictures that she decided simply must be turned into stamps. That was the beginning of a project that I fear will never end. These trading cards have been more trouble than any of them that I have ever done. The carves take what seems like forever and there have been snags at almost every stage. Paper issues, adhesive issues, coloring issues, fairy etiquette issues, illness....

Currently, only 4 of the 7 stamps/cards are done, when I would have liked to have this project completely behind me by now. Below is a picture of the four that are done. We made two versions of each card: one that needs to be colored by the recipient and one that is pre-colored according to how she saw them in her head. I attempted to color a couple of them my way and was reprimanded. Apparently, soft peach is the only acceptable skin color for fairies (although I thought the silver looked kind of cool). I should also note that I am not allowed to call the blue one a pixie because it doesn't have wings~in spite of her acknowledgement of the fact that butterfly wings probably wouldn't work too well in the water. Somebody has become an overnight expert in all things fairy-ish, and it obviously isn't me.
I wonder what she'll cook up next?

A Batty Labor of Love

LTC Spoiler Alert!!!

Our 9 yo daughter is crazy about bats. The foot of her bed is covered with stuffed bats and she knows more about them than anyone else I've ever met. And I'm pretty crazy about her. Moms have been known to do some crazy things for their kids. I figure that spending more than 12 hours carving stamps of bats ranks right up there. So without further ado, I give you Order Chiroptera: The Queensland Tube Nosed Fruit Bat

The Egyptian Fruit Bat on a Baobab flower

The Variegated Butterfly Bat

And the Old World (or Madagascar) Sucker-footed Bat

A couple of these were some pretty intense carves, but over all, I am pleased with how they turned out. The Egyptian Fruit bat is my favorite and the Variegated Butterfly bat is DoodlePaws' favorite.

CROP Walk LTCs

The Walk is over and the cards are in the mail. If you are expecting these, you might not want to peek!

The four of us participated in the Community Interfaith CROP Hunger Walk in Southern Dekalb County (IL) yesterday. The girls walked one mile with Papa and I walked 5 miles. What started off as slightly drizzly turned into a spectacular Fall day and it was a lot of fun being part of something that will make a big difference in other people's lives. The group we walked with had 167 walkers from a number of different churches in the area and we raised over $18,000! And that doesn't include some of the online donations (not all of them had been verified yet) or any of the matching funds that were pledged. While this was the first year that our church took part, many in the group had been doing this for 15 years or better! I am already looking forward to next year.

The more trading cards I post, the more I am realizing how difficult it is to get accurate pictures of the little buggers. :) The first card, for the silver level donations, is embossed. I discovered some new embossing powder designed for detailed images. I love it! The grains are much finer than what I was using previously and it really made a huge difference.
The Gold Level card is a stamp layered over a printed computer graphic. I bought a T-shirt that looks just like it!
The Platinum level card is the one I had the most fun with. I'm a Farmer's Wife....why hadn't I carved corn yet??? The picture above is deceiving because the paper is textured. I bought it because it reminded me of corn husks. I plan on using this stamp lots!

By the way, everyone who donated received all three cards. I appreciate everyone who helped out with this more than I can say. I am continually floored by the generosity of the letterboxing community at large. Most of the people who sent money are ones that I only have a "virtual" relationship with, meaning that we have never met face to face. But I consider each and everyone of you true friends. Thank you so much!!!

Bird LTCs--Spoiler Alert!

All three of these cards are still active. But I don't want to do dishes, so I'm posting them anyway! It's not my fault you peeked!

Percy the Penguin was just begging to be carved. I'm really disappointed in this photo though. He is standing on an embossed iceberg that turned out really cool and has wispy clouds around him~except you can't see those in the picture. For the iceberg, I used the "cracked ground" background stamp from the Rhino card in the Wild Kingdom series. I stamped it in the palest blue I have. Then I stamped it again with the clear embossing ink and used the pearl powder.
The Bluebird is the first card in the Songbird series. It's really a pretty straightforward card. I used two patterned papers for the background. The blue does have a pattern, but it is very subtle. I forgot to color the red breast on the first five cards that I mailed, so if you got one of them, you can either ignore it or color it like the bird above.
The Cactus Wren was just finished last night. Same approach as the Bluebird card. I don't know...is the Cactus Wren really a songbird? There aren't too many of them in Illinois!!

I'd like to do some more bird cards. I love birds and could sit and watch them for hours. We get lots of them in our yard here in the country in spite of the fact that we don't have tree cover yet. The little Slate Juncoes that stay all winter and entertain us with their clown-like antics are among my favorites. I also love watching the goldfinches pin the dandelions to ground to keep them from getting away while they peck all the seeds out.

I was planting a box in Minnesota back in August and a little wren (Carolina?) gave me a scolding not to be forgotten. It seemed a rather brassy thing for such a tiny bird. They are so funny!

Rainbow after the Storm

"Never Lost" is another of the Jigsaw Puzzle cards. The puzzle had 10 separate stamp images on it, most of them different kinds of navigational tools. The background script stamp is the only one that is not handcarved. The whole thing was rubbed with chalk to give it the look of a worn map.
Here is the front of the puzzle pocket.
And the inside of the puzzle pocket.
And finally! This was FlowerWind's first carve and LTC! She drew the picture herself and carved (under close supervision!) everything but the beak and eye, which she was too nervous to do. This is Icee the Penguin!

Slowing to a Drizzle

Only a couple more posts and I'll be caught up on trading card pictures!

This was MCE Sunflowers and no matter what I do to the photo, I can't get it the right color. This is too bright. The stamp was carved from an MC Escher design. I can't resist his stuff.
"Fractal" was a card that came from my rebellious side. If I remember correctly, 3 Blind Mice and I were having a discussion via email about adding the perspective of dimension to our cards and I got to wondering if I could create a card with no dimension at all. Something that looked invisible. After lots of trial and error, I ended up stamping with the lightest ice blue ink I could find and then embossing it with a pearl powder. And all of this was on a clear ink jet transparency. The result looks like frost on a window. The above picture was taken against a window at night so that the card would show up. In the end, my orneriness created a trading card with more dimension of any of my other cards. ;)
These last three pictures are of another of my Jigsaw Puzzle cards. This one is much clamoured for Blowball (another MC Escher design~I can't help myself.) Above is the complete stamp.
The outside of the puzzle pocket.
The inside of the puzzle pocket. The last of the completed puzzle pockets will be in the next post. I am still planning on making two more cards in this series. Maybe by the end of the year!

Get a Canoe!

New Arrival, for the Family Portraits ring. Carved from a photo of my new nephew.
Needled. This trading card was by far the most involved I've ever done. Each card took over an hour. The little embroidered piece is a sample of Norwegian Hardanger. The stamp is embossed white on white, like the traditional Hardanger.
Naptime was carved from a photo taken of my husband and our little preemie the day after we brought her home.
This card was for the My Hometown swap. I live in the first established Norwegian community in Illinois~hence the Viking.
This is another card that is a bit deceiving. The mermaid is stamped on vellum, so there is more depth to the card than appears here.

It's a Deluge!

If this card looks vaguely familiar, you're not imagining things. I took the image from the Lady Slipper Orchid and recarved the stamp. This time I carved a positive image instead of a negative one.
Slush in my Shoe was for the "Old Faces" swap. This is one of my favorite quotes.
Sister's Day was invented by my two girls because they figured that since Mothers, Fathers and Grandparents all get a day, so should Sisters! We made the card for the Create Your Own Holiday swap.
Purple Baby has a very personal story behind it. Those are stamps created from my oldest daughter's prints after birth. They are actual size. To read about it, go here. For a more detailed version, bring a box of kleenex and go Here.
I carved Pinky and the Brain just for fun!

Still Raining

This first card was made for the World Languages ring. You really should check out the clue page for this card. There is some really fun stuff about the Warao language there.

But how do you portray an entire language on one trading card? I couldn't do it, so my card opened up. This is the inside.

Not all who wander are looking for letterboxes. Some of the really are lost. Maybe my Treasure Map card could help?
Marshmallow World and it's companion card below, Sugar Date, were made in honor of a song. Read the whole story, and the words to the song HERE.
There has been much discussion on the AQ LTC board about whether or not you keep a copy of your own cards, and if so, which one? I should probably note that I keep one provided that I remember to, but I pick the worst one out of the bunch. So, if some of the cards that I post here look a little wonky or have boo-boos on them, it's because I'd rather keep those than send them to someone else. The Marshmallow World card above is a good example of embossing gone bad.

It's Raining Trading Cards!

Until I started posting all of these cards, I hadn't realized that I had made that many! It's not wonder the laundry never gets folded!

This is Kirby's (our crazy border collie) card. It's called Are You Ready? All we have to do is say the word ready, even whisper it in another room of the house, and Kirby is on the alert. This card was available to trade with people who sent me the story of the the worst thing their dog ever rolled in. Boy, did I ever get some great stories!
Kitty Love was my valentine card. My 9 yo saw the picture of this cat with the heart shaped kink in her tail and she made me carve it.
The Koi card was my contribution to the Zoo Animals ring. This photo doesn't do the card justice. I stamped the Koi (an Escher design, I might add) in a random pattern all over light blue paper and then cut it to size. Then I took ink jet transparency film and did a blue wash on the "rough" side to give the look of water. I used spray adhesive to attach the transparency to the koi paper and then stamped the lily pads on top. When you look at the card, it really does seem like you are looking down through the water to see the fish.
The Lady Slipper Orchid above was carved for my SiL, and the Pansy Orchid below was carved for my Mom. Can I help it if some trading cards got made along the way?
More showers in the forecast for later!