Our First Event!

(Jesus, that's one hell of a landmark)

Brosie and I were finally able to make it to a letterboxing event. We've been wanting to go to an event, but when we initially looked there weren't any around us. We kept looking and found one that was relatively close by in Burke Virginia: Mice in the Library. It was a little bit of a drive, which gave us an opportunity to hit up some boxes on the way there and back. It was a really fun time and we finally got to meet some other letterboxers! We got our first event stamp, a bunch of personal travelers and exchanges, and the whole series that was at the event.

A big thank you to Paper Trails for setting up the event, the stamps were amazing and the clues were a lot of fun to figure out. We'll be seeing you again soon!

We'd also like to thank everyone we exchanged signature stamps with and/or personal travelers:

Paper Trail
Una Marlee Sue
Penguin_Girl22
Traks15
Chili Pepper
Rebiccola
Janila
AdventurousAcorn
AandP
Tree Knocker
RosieRevere
SuperRod

We'll make sure to have a personal traveler or two for future events.

Until next time...

Time for an update

We've been keeping pretty busy, so we've been neglecting the blog a little bit. I figured it was time to give a little update.

Back in July, we went on a vacation to South Carolina and were finally able to hit up some out-of-state boxes. Once the route was figured out, Brosie (with her amazing google maps skills) plotted out some boxes that we could find along the way and even more once we got to our destination.

We encountered our very first hitchhiker hostel at a rest area and we came prepared. Before we left on the trip we created three hitchhikers to place in the box to make sure that we had enough to keep the box at three. As of this writing, all three have been found and are on to their next stop. I love the idea of a HHH, maybe that's something that we can do in the future.

The great thing about letterboxing, besides the adventure of the hunt and ecstasy of the find, is all the incredible places that it takes you. While on our trip we went to a whirligig park in Wilson, NC, had some incredible food at Page's Okra Grill, went to some amazing parks and explored parts of downtown Charleston that we may have never gone to without letterboxing. We're already planning another trip down there, too many boxes to get in just one week.

We still plan on planting some boxes in the area, but we've but that one the back burner for now. We've carved the stamps and made some of the logbooks, but we want to get some more experience first to make sure we do a good job. If anyone has some tips that they'd like to share, we're all ears! Feel free to send us some AQmail (thanks for the message PlumCrazy!) or leave a comment on the blog.

More updates to follow...

Hitchhiking Through Space and Time

Hi folks, Novelty again.

Since Brosie and I have started letterboxing we've logged more than 70 finds and since we aren't quite ready to start planting our own boxes, we went ahead and made a hitchhiker.

We had been talking about doing a series of Doctor Who themed boxes when we eventually got around to planting them, but decided instead to do a Doctor Who hitchhiker. We figured that that would be a good place to start. Here's what we came up with:

We went with a fez and a bow tie to represent the 11th Doctor. We did some test stamps to see how it was coming along and continued to trim it up.

We also wanted to make a unique logbook to go along with the stamp. What else but a Tardis!

Next we used a colored in line drawing of the doctor to put on the inside cover of the logbook to show off our new stamp.

With the Doctor in the Tardis, sporting his bow tie and fez, it was time to gather everything together and say goodbye to the Doctor so he could start his adventure through space and time.

Maybe you'll be the Doctor's next companion...

1 Month Anniversary!/What do you carry?

today is our one month anniversary of letterboxing. we have found 61 boxes and 5 hitchhikers along the way! we are walking and biking way more than we ever did before. this is getting us fit! it has brought us to so many parks and museums that we didn’t even know were in our general area. 

because of letterboxing, we’ve discovered painted rocks, and we’ve discovered random tepees, and a gift card (!), and awesome libraries, and 6 deer, and a really cool snail, and the fact that you can actually explore colonial williamsburg without paying…

i have had some questions though, and i’ll share one of them.
with our kit, we started off with a basic toolbox, but expanded to a backpack. we have a compass, bags (small, medium and large), wet wipes, napkins, hand sanitizer, bug bite cream, 10 different inks, our stamp, our logbook, 4 small replacement notepads, a bottle of water, trail mix, a hitchhiker (usually), a couple pens, a couple sharpies, bandaids, felt, scissors….
i don’t know if we should start bringing replacement containers as well! we’ve come across so many that are entirely cracked through, that we try to rebag as best as we can, but it seems futile if the container is broken through. 
I guess we should carry extra containers, and some gloves and sunscreen. anything else?

what do y'all carry?  

Carving From Beginners

Hey everyone *crickets*, Novelty here. I just wanted to go through our process of designing and carving our stamp. I wish we would have taken more pictures of the actual carving process, we have to make sure to do that next time.

 First, we had to hit up the local arts & crafts store to get our supplies:

 Tracing Paper

 Speedball rubber pad

Gouging Tool

Ink Pads

 Since this was our first stamp (I've carved a stamp only once before, 10+ years ago), both Brosie and I decided to pick out a couple ideas to add to the design. Since she loves the Moomins so much, Brosie picked the Moomintroll herself and I added the film strip, sun and clouds. Once we had our idea and drawing finished, I freehanded the image on the stamp and we got to carving (Transferring from the tracing paper would have been easier, but didn't learn about that until later). This is pretty meticulous work, so we each took turns carving the stamp to give the other a break.

We had a couple mishaps in the carving process, but in the end I think we did a really great job, first custom stamp and all.

 Brosie came across some great tutorials on Atlas Quest for carving and mounting stamps (https://www.atlasquest.com/tutorials/carving/), which would have been nice to see beforehand. Check it out for some useful tips.

 Until next time...

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