Single Sheet Folded Mini Book

M and I put together some folded mini books for our three sponsored boys this morning. We personalized them and added verses and stickers. If you don't have a sponsored child, don't fret. Uses for these folded mini books are only limited by your creativity (Logbooks, anyone?).

1. Start with a 12 x 12 inch sheet of card stock (it must be a true 12 inches). Three inches from the top, and three inches from the bottom, mark a  nine inch line from the left side of the paper, leaving the last three inches on the right side unmarked. In the center of the paper, mark a nine inch line from the right side of the paper, leaving the last three inches on the left side unmarked. I created a template with my first sheet so that I wouldn't have to draw lines on the other pieces. Once you have your lines marked, use a blade and straight edge to cut along the lines. Take your time to get the lines precise.

2. Next, fold the sheet in half, perpendicular to the cuts, making sure that you keep everything squared up nicely. Fold each edge back toward the center fold. When you are finished, you will have one "valley" fold in the center, and two "mountain" folds equidistant from the center. Again, take your time. It isn't hard, but the more effort you put into being neat, the better the finished product will look.

3. Now you have a strip 3 inches wide and 12 inches long. Fold the width of the strip in half, and then fold each end back toward the center. At this point, it should be fairly obvious where you need to fold it to end up with a 3 inch square.

4. Now Decorate!

The final product, all folded up. As an incidental (well, not really) bonus, on the book we made for Edwin in Peru, the name of God is the first thing you see, from both front and back!

Ohio 2006

If they can show retromercials on TV, the I'm taking the liberty to post some retro family photos here. It's not really a priority for us to have them printed. The digital versions take up less space, cost nothing, and can be accessed from any computer.

We took a trip to the Dayton area to visit family in 2006. We did some letterboxing, visited a Children's garden that was a sensory wonderland, and hung out with family. It's such fun for me to look back and see how much the girls have grown since then!

Strange Things

We've been working on getting rid of some clutter over the past few weeks and have come across some unusual items. Even more interesting, however, is the process of sorting through old files on the computer. Pictures in particular. This one seemed appropriate:

In 2006 we took a vacation to visit relatives in Ohio. I was able to squeeze in a couple letterbox hunts while there, thanks to my ever patient family. On one outing, we found this broom--inexplicably parked next to a waterfall. It is easily the strangest thing that I have ever seen while boxing. The second would be the 25 pound bag of cat chow on the trail, miles away from anything.

As I sort through old photos, it is my plan to post slideshows of various vacations, field trips, and asundries. My main purpose is to create a place to look at them (and get them off my hard drive at the same time) without spending the money to print them (at least until I can afford it). Feel free to look at them, or ignore them.

In the meantime, what is the strangest thing that you have found while out hiking?

Lou'siana

Since I've been home for over a week now, isn't it about time I posted some of my pics? Yep, that's what I thought.
Aside from camera troubles frustrating enough to make me want to chuck it in the nearest fountain, I came home with some decent amateur photos. Enjoy.

A few thoughts about the trip:

• New Orleans has some beautiful things in it, and it is true that you could happily eat your way from one end of it to th'other, but it takes some purposeful obliviousness to navigate it without permanently scaring your innocence. That or buckets of Wassa's Eye Bleach.
• When the threat is real, I am indeed afraid of snakes.
• Live Oaks are just about the coolest thing ever.
• Friends you've never met before can turn out to be just as amazing as you hoped they'd be.
• So can their kids.
• Pralines. Yum.
• Worshiping with others "of like faith and practice" is awe inspiring no matter where it takes place.
• I want to go back.

Log Pile

Getting ready for a letterboxing event in October. Over the weekend, I put together 20 logbooks. Paper is cut for more, but my hand was too sore to squeeze the hole punch any more, so the rest will have to wait.

I've been carving like mad too, but I can't exactly show you the stamps yet, now can I? None of the boxes can remain permanently, so I will be able to post pictures later. I will tell you this: I probably will not be carving any more horses for a very long time. :)

June and Jubilee

I know that you have been waiting breathlessly for the next Box of the Month picture. It looks pretty much the same as last month. Very green.
The June box was from 3 Blind Mice, so we had to make sure we didn't miss it. The day after M's bday, we hot footed it down to Princeton and picked up two boxes. Then M asked "Are we ever going to meet Shorty?" So we called him up and met at Culver's for lunch. How fun!

Several days later, Questar and I went down to Peoria to finish pulling the rest of the event boxes out of Jubilee College SP. I have not mentioned Jubilee up to this point because I'm trying to repress the memory. Let me be brief. I have never met a preserve I didn't like...until now. When I went down in May to help Hart x6 and Shorty plant for the Great Lakes Event, it was hot, slimy, sloppy, muddy, and I got my first taste of stinging nettles. Everything in that park has fangs.(Oh, and don't forget the CRUD marathon going on all day. I have to admit, it was fun saying "Oh, Crud! every time one of the runners came by when we were trying to plant.) The day was successful however, and from the reports I hear, the event was exciting. I'm sure the tornado helped.

Since I did not get to attend the event, we made an agreement that I could help pull boxes that I didn't plant so that I could stamp them and at least get to enjoy some of the amazing carvings. Which is the only thing that took me back to that park. It was drier for the most part, and I was mentally prepared for the PI, nettles, and 'squitoes. And thankfully, we had been warned about the Wild Parsnip and Giant Hogweed, so we could avoid those too. Parsnip and Hogsweed are photo-toxic plants, meaning that the oils react with UV rays and chemically burn your skin. Lovely.
We saw a number of butterflies, but other than the vulture that circled us at lunch (until I shouted that we weren't dead yet, and he went away), we did not see any other fauna in the park (the snake is from the day we planted). Maybe they don't like it there either.
Still, 18 boxes and 7-8 miles hiked isn't too shabby. The company was good too.

**The invasive, uncharitable vegetation seems to be on the rise in many places. I would highly recommend that everyone who spends time in the parks and preserves becomes familiar with plants that should be avoided. Forewarned is forearmed...know thine enemies, and all that. You can usually get reliable information from the park services or you local county extension office.

Trip Across America

Prairie Dog and I have started hunting the Trip Across America series of letterboxes by Cherokee Rose 2. Okay, so she has already found quite a number of them, but she is graciously going with me anyway. So far, we have seen some interesting things, the preserves have been really nice, and I am anticipating looking for the rest of the boxes.

Here's the thing though...I'm not going to make a separate post every time we find more of these boxes. I'll probably just add more photos to this slideshow. I'll try to clue you in to updates in subsequent posts though.

Hennepin Canal Trail

In the past, the girls and I have hiked (Is it really hiking if you're just walking along a fairly level, groomed path?) parts of the I & M canal trail. It's easy enough for J, and we always see really amazing stuff. Last year, we happened to be there when the Ruby Crowned Kinglets were migrating through. You can't plan things like that.

More recently, we have started exploring the Hennepin Canal Trail which goes from the Illinois River to the Mississippi. The canal trails offer plenty of opportunities to learn everything from history and geography to engineering and resource management. The girls make me explain the function of a Lock every time we're near one.
It also helps that Shorty, Hart x6, and Pitties have planted a 52 box series based on the Wizard of Oz along the Hennepin Canal. All of them are amazing carvers and the boxes that we have found so far are very well done. I don't really put much stock in the Blue Diamond status for letterboxes, but these boxes really are a cut above the average. Shorty hand made all of the logbooks with his Bind it All (I think there might be a new addiction there) and you can purchase Oz logbooks from him if you want to keep all of the stamp images together in one place. There is also a Yahoo Group just for this series. No, they didn't pay me to advertise.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I took two nephews and a daughter down and we spent some time around the Visitor Center in Sheffield (which means I'm getting the boxes out of order, but enduring fewer "How much farther?" questions). They have a mini museum inside, mostly about the wildlife around the canal. We hunted some boxes, saw ridiculously huge flathead catfish, and locked ourselves out of the van. Then we spent more time in the museum while we waited for the gracious officer from the Bureau County Sheriff's office who came and opened the door in under a minute. We managed to get C home to his baseball game only 2 minutes late. I love happy endings. The Psalmist declares the "my times are in your hands." What a perfect opportunity to practice satisfaction with what God decrees for our days and not "kick against the goads".

Since this is such an extensive series, I will periodically add more pictures to the slideshow as we have more adventures. I'll try to post updates to let you know when there are new photos.

May BOM

The girls did not go with me to Princeton in May. Instead, Prairie Dog and I hunted the Box of the Month and another series by Shorty (Comics). It was a great day, in spite of driving all the way to Buffalo Rock SP only to find All the trails closed.

April BOM

I know, I know. It's about time!

These are the pictures from our trip to Princeton in April for the Box of the Month. With the exception of the ones that she is in, M took all the photos.

A Bad Year

Prairie Dog, Questar and I went letterboxing up in Northfield yesterday. It was a fantastic day and we found all of the boxes in Atomic Beans' winter series, A Bad Year. It's a fun, clever series and we were particularly intrigued with the containers. The stamps were fun and I loved how all of them could be stamped with black ink. These boxes will be out until April 3rd, so if you get a chance, I would highly recommend that you look for them.

It would have been a great day even without the boxes. The weather was gorgeous and (according to the man pushing his daughter in the stroller) we saw lots of "naturey things". You have to love it when noxers come up with your cover story for you. What did we see?

• Deer. Staring at us. Not afraid. Making snide comments under their breath as we stamped in. Very unnerving.
• Birds. Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Black-capped Chickadee, and something that said "Ow" when it sang.
• Fungus. Because of our friend, FungusWoman, we notice fungus everywhere. Even 50 feet up in a tree. Don't have a clue what kinds they are, but we notice them.
• Moss. Until M decided she wanted to make a moss garden (a project in one of those big books of things to do), I had never paid attention to moss. Yesterday I couldn't get away from it. Perhaps because everything else is still dormant and brown, the moss seemed to glow in the sunlight. I never imagined that there could be so many textures and patterns to moss. Of course I brought some home for her.*
• Cyclists. Blurring past. Oblivious to the beauty around them. I ask you, why do you need special shoes to ride a bike?
• Mud. It could have been worse. Yee-ha!

It was a very satisfying day.

 *I realize this violates the Leave No Trace policy, so you can yell at me if you like. However, I can guarantee that none of the moss I took had a conservation status that was threatened in any way and I'm pretty sure that before spring is out, it will all have grown back.

March BOM

Mud was the word for today. But I'm not complaining. At least we were able to stamp into a couple of boxes without it raining on us (which is par for me). The March Box of the Month was as nice as the others. I think we need to get a little more creative with our photo-in-the-same-spot-each-month though. This is only the third picture and I'm already bored with them.

More boxing on Tuesday-woot, woot!

Birthday Boy

My letterboxing buddy turns three today. In honor of this auspicious occasion, we dressed him up (hence the menacing glower) and took silly pictures. Isn't that what dogs are for?

Cowboy Kirby

If you can't herd them, join them in a nap.

February Boxing

Another trip to Princeton for the February Box of the Month yesterday and here is our picture:
This box was absolutely delightful. We stood there in the woods and read the story out loud to the snow and the two red tailed hawks in a nearby tree. For the rest of the day, we repeated a line from the story, just to be silly. Great attention to detail makes for a fantastic letterbox presentation.

Cant' wait till next month!

Snow Boxing

Shorty is participating in the Box of the Month swap this year and since he lives less than an hour away, we are privileged to be within striking distance of most anything he plants. So after piano lessons today, I bribed the girls into going down to Princeton for "just one box" which turned into "four easy boxes" and lunch with Questar. I'm not going to push my luck and actually ask them, but I think they even had fun.
The January box was Doggone Fun by SN Bone. Very nice! We are going to try to get all of the BOMs, and M thought it would be fun to take a picture in the same spot each time.

DoodlePaws and FlowerWind found deer, raccoon and bird tracks in the snow, as well as what might be the world's tiniest pine cones.


This is one of several covered bridges in Princeton. The sign above says "Five dollars fine for driving more than twelve horses mules or cattle at one time or for leading any beast faster than a walk on or across this bridge".

Legacy in Stitches

"Legacy in Stitches" is one of those stamps that I'd like another crack at, but will not likely ever take. This quilt stamp was created for the Country Comforts postal letterbox series that I did a while back. Fiber Arts is such a big part of so many people's lives and nothings brings back memories better than a hand made quilt.
For the image, I took one of my Mother's quilt books and scanned all of the block patterns for one applique quilt into my computer. Then I used Photoshop to piece them all together and resize them. Which was insane. Still, I ended up with a decent image transfer and the carve went fairly well. I was still in my "pink stuff" phase and combining negative and positive carving.


I attempted to color the stamp like the quilt in the book. Even after practice it took 20 minutes. This is the best color image that I was able to get.

Want to hear a funny quilt story?
My parents went on a vacation and I stayed at their house to take care of things. One day, I was cleaning up and tossed a dirty quilt into the washer. It was mostly white, with a multi-colored double wedding ring pattern on it. I knew that Mom washed it and so did think anything of it. Until I opened the lid of the washer. The entire quilt was the color of cranberry juice! Only then did I remember putting some mulberry placemats in the wash the day before. I was positively sick. I cried. I couldn't eat. I was sure that my parents had received that quilt as a wedding present and I had ruined it.
A couple of days later when Mom called to check in, I confessed to what I had done in between sobs. I knew she was going to be upset.
The first thing she said was, "What? You mean the dog's blanket?"

We're still laughing about it.

A Whale of a Postal

If ever there was a stamp with a tale to tell, it would be this one.
I was still learning to carve (and still am) and had begun experimenting with ways to create the visual image of texture with the rubber. It was mildly successful, and I was pleased with the results. The Humpback was carved for a postal and I was taken by surprise when it was hard to let it go when the ring started. Emotional attachment to a piece of rubber wasn't something I had expected.
Over the next 2 1/2 years it traveled. It visited more than 60 people in three separate rings. It spent countless weeks in a "black hole" on more than one occasion. That includes the time it slipped down behind someone's couch cushions and was presumed dead. Toward the end, I gave up trying to keep track of it. I retired the stamp and forgot about it.
And then one day it surfaced in my mailbox. Just like that. In perfect condition and with a full logbook. Talk about a happy dance!

A Fairy Tale

The Three Little Pigs
the Letterboxing Version

Once upon a time (March 4th, 2005, to be exact), a timber wolf was reading the Woodland Telegraph and happened upon an article about the hobby of Letterboxing. The article was not very clear, as many of them aren't, but the idea intrigued him and he decided to look into it further. After finding Atlas Quest on the internet and reading the tutorials and glossary, he thought he would give it a try. He created a profile for himself, using BigBadWolf as his trailname. Then he printed out some clues and went out and found a couple of letterboxes that were in the forest nearby. He loved it so much that he carved his own signature stamp immediately and spent the next several months happily hunting letterboxes.

Then came the fateful day a few months later (July 9th it was). With backpack full of Marvy markers in one paw and clues in the other, BigBadWolf set out for the Fairy Tale Forest Preserve to hunt for the notorious "Building Materials" letterbox series. Very shortly after starting on the trail, he came upone a house made of straw. It was in ruins. The door was completely gone and the rest of it was a shamble. Nevertheless, he managed to find the letterbox in the rubble. He stamped into the log, and inked the box's stamp. Just as he was huffing and puffing on the stamp to moisten the ink, around the bend came three little pigs, laughing and jostling each other. They stared in horror at the wolf with his lungs full of air and the wreckage in front of him. He started to try to explain, but they ran away squealing.
The wolf shrugged his shoulders, rehid the box and moved on.

It was a considerable hike to reach the spot for the second letterbox and by the time BigBadWolf reached the top of the hill, he was quite winded. Little did he know that just ahead of him on the trail were the three pigs. The little pigs saw him come over the hill huffing and puffing and thought he was chasing them. Before he could call out to them, they fled in terror. Since there was nothing else he could do, the wolf found the second letterbox and stamped in; all the while trying not to let the thought of Muggles ruin his entire day.

The last box was the hardest and it took BigBadWolf a long time to figure out the clue. Just as he was about to give up, he spotted a suspicious configuration of bricks covered with ivy on the edge of a ravine at a heading of 137* from a round stone the size of a bowling ball. (Don't ask how a wolf knew what a bowling ball was.) He clambered up a slope and was feeling around the bricks (it was an old broken chimney) for the letterbox when some of the bricks tumbled, smashing a front and back paw as they fell. The poor wolf howled in pain. He hopped around on one paw huffing and puffing on his sore fingers for a minute then sat down in frustration. This hadn't been the best boxing day for him. Suddenly he felt that he was not alone. Slowly turning around, he saw three pairs of eyes peeking out from behind a dead tree.
"Please, come out." He said. "I'm not going to hurt you. And I could use the help finding this last letterbox before it gets dark."

Then, with many interruptions (they were little pigs, after all), BigBadWolf proceeded to explain to them what he had been doing that day and to tell them all about letterboxing. The little pigs helped him find the box in the chimney and he taught them how to be extra careful when putting the box back so that it would be safe for the next boxer that came along. He wrote down a couple of websites and they planned to keep in touch. Of course, the three little pigs went squealing "Whee! Whee! Whee!'' and doing their happy dance all the way home.

Now the 3LittlePigs and BigBadWolf are friends and go out on many wonderful letterboxing adventures together, even though the pigs prefer Postal Letterboxes because they are too fat to do much hiking.

The End

Originally created for a postal ring once upon a time. Not my best stamp.

Uneventful Event

This last weekend Chad and I attended the Boxacon event in Waukesha, WI. Aimlesst put together a great gathering with lots of science fiction themed boxes, tons of great food, a fantastic turn out and weather that cooperated for the most part. I got to see several "old" friends and meet lots of new people as well. Everyone was friendly and gracious to my DH, as I knew they would be. And unless I just haven't found them yet, I didn't come home with a single cootie. In spite of my knee, I managed to walk a short trail and find a few boxes with the help of Shorty, Pitties, and Atomic Beans (thanks for allowing the slack boxing guys!).
All in all, it was fairly ordinary. Don't read that as boring though. I just mean that nobody got set on fire, or arrested, or any such nonsense.

I purposefully left the file size of this photo huge so that you can click on it to enlarge the picture. I thought about trying to identify everyone, but quickly gave that up as too daunting a task for this early in the morning.

I only carved one new stamp for the event. M has been bugging me to carve Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver for months and I finally gave in. It isn't any light saber, but if I had to choose one to have "for real", I'd pick the sonic screwdriver in a double heart beat. There isn't much that little gizmo can't do.

On the way home, we stopped for dinner at the Chicken Basket, one of Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive ins, and Dives. It has been on our list since February. Yes, the fried chicken and mac n cheese were as good as we expected. Maybe the guy does know what he's talking about after all.



Of course, this begs the question: Could a person, theoretically, put together a road trip that combines the best of both the letterboxing and the foodie worlds and convince said person's family to actually take such a hypothetical journey?

Gone but not Forgotten

We'll be taking just a short trip in the Retro Rocket today to tell the story of two stamps that have crossed the inky Rainbow Bridge to the Happy Stamping Ground.

Miss Moppett was carved for what I thought would be my very first postal: a ring dedicated to the works of Beatrix Potter. Unfortunately, the organizers went off the grid before the ring started, but not before I had mailed my stamp and logbook to them. Curiously, this was the 11th stamp that I carved, 2 months into my letterboxing journey. It is the first one that I carved as a positive image. The stamp might be gone, but there is a grey wad of fur sleeping on my bed named Moppett that isn't going anywhere. :)
It is my understanding that the letterboxers that this went to had, and may still be having, serious issues with illness. The people behind the trailnames are always far more precious than any hunk of rubber, no matter how much time is invested in the carving. It is my sincere hope that they will find peace and healing, whether they are able to return to letterboxing or not.
AKC Spots was carved for a young boxer to use for a school project. The hope was that after the project was complete, the donated boxes would be planted, giving the rest of us a chance to one day "find" our own boxes. I made this image before I realized that the stamp needed the extra support of a mount. The end result created a much better impression. Just for fun, I included the Hydrant HH.

More Retro Rocket later!