Plant a Letterbox Day- How to hide 18 boxes in a day... no really how?

So I made a promise, a promise I intend to keep. My promise was that I would plant at least 15 boxes for plant a letterboxing day. I am extremely competitive so any chance to make that leader board ... I am on board. Even while we talk I am passive aggressively emailing friends in Boston egging them on about the playoff game playing ( keeping in mind I don't usually watch hockey, I don't identify with the leafs at all, nor in any other situation would I actually talk smack about hockey or sports in general). ( and now before I finish this post I am eating my own words).

Anyways, long story short.... how does one plant 18 letterboxes in one day? Hah.... # work-cut-out-for-me!

Switching it up. Making my own log books with the stamp image on the front of the book.

Decided to use forest green this time and stencil the word letterbox on it.

I liked the oddness of this booklet, nothing really goes together but yet it all works. 

Re- Purposed Vintage Novels into Spiral Bound Journals

Some more creations today. Loving this little Zutter machine

Punching the holes

Marry for Love journal with hearts embossed on the cover

Marry for Love Journal

Little stamp surprise in the Marry for Love Journal

Wizard of Oz Journal

Backside of the Wizard of Oz Journal is another novel

Love the picture of this woman

This stamp seemed to fit well with the book

Spiral Bound Vintage Books

All bound up

Oh Glory.
What a flippen stressful week. I just cannot seem to get ahead of things. Whenever I get this worked up I usually craft or carve or do something to release the negative energy. Unfortunately I am a bit carved out at the moment with all the stamps I carved for the Bloomin Earth Festival. So instead I decided to try out my new binding machine. You may remember this machine from my "GOOD MAIL DAY" post. I was a little apprehensive because it seems a bit complex and unclear but the directions were great and it took no time to get into the groove.

So the story begins almost two years ago when I saw a vintage hardback novel made into a spiral bound (plastic) notebook/journal. The store was asking almost $40.00 for the book and that was not happening. I decided I was going to make my own. Unfortunatly, none of the binding machine places would chance wreaking their machine to punch the vintage book covers ( I mean it is only chipboard but whatever). So I saw this bind it all machine online and it advertised itself as being able to punch holes in wood. I was sold.

Tonight I took an old vintage book called Everyday Science and bound it into a journal. I found out quickly that typically wire o-ring coils are sold by the box ( ie. 140). I only wanted a few dozen so a company actually sent "Family Art Bomb" about a dozen samples in hopes that I would order more ( which I may.. if I go crazy with this hobby but its not likely).

The book itself i s from Tehkummah Central Public School which my father actually attended ( Maybe, maybe it was even earlier than that). I love the idea of having this old book full of history from the little town I grew up in.

So I punched some holes in the book cover and paper, mounted it on the spiral and used the machine to close the rings and secure the book in place. Then I took some of my carved stamps and actually stamped the book cover and embossed it to add just a bit more detail.

I am thrilled with how it turned out and I have a pile of about 8 more books that I will be binding in the near future. What do you think?

Getting the materials ready to bind. This little Zutter machine is amazing.

Punching the pages for binding.

I love the Tehkummah School Area Stamp

Embossed  butterfly  on the cover of the book

Embossed bird on the back cover

The final product

I cannot wait to make this funky book into a journal

More vintage books to be made into journals

Still more vintage books to be made into journals

How is this carved?

https://www.facebook.com/talktothesun?hc_location=stream

There is a stamp carver who also sells on Etsy (Talk to the Sun), she is from Japan. I marvel at some of her straight edge carvings. I am curious if this is just a knife cut or something  more. Especially the negative space, it is art within a stamp, so perfect.

Anyone have any ideas?

I LOVE A GOOD MAIL DAY

I love a good mail day. This happened late last week but I mean honestly, could it get any better than this, 90% of what I was waiting for all came on the same day....

So up on the top we have a handy dandy little machine that binds just about everything. Infact, it is called a BIND IT ALL. What I did not account for is how hard it would be to order metal spiral binding loose (instead of in a 150 piece box). So I will have to wait to get those metal coils in the mail before I can play with it but what I am hoping to do is use old novels and make them into journals. Initially I thought I could hand bind them but I slowly learned that I really get no joy out of doing hand binding and have no skill in it so enough of that, I am punching them instead.

Then I have a lovely book outlining creative expression activities for youth. It has a bit of an art therapy feel but it will be good to have as I start to think about how I can possibly weave self-identity development and letterboxing into a girls program for my job with the YWCA (pipe dream- perhaps but maybe not).

Then that lovely envelope up front is all the way from the  Ohio Safari (Safari Man from Ohio) who sent along two stamps to be used for BOX-ON. The pile begins. Traditionally I would show you the picture of the stamps, however, I notice my ratings on the blog go WAYYYYY down when I put in spoilers so a mystery it will be.

Any lastly, style at home... which is just my lazy mag.

Stamps Expanded

.... that awkward moment when you don't put the word "rubber" before stamps when talking to peers about your odd letterboxing hobby and they ask if you collect coins too.....

I have been working away to get things together for this festival I am selling my artsy gems in (stamps, little note books, button magnets and now pins). I really wanted to bust out the new button maker to make some buttons- it seems like such a waste to be in a show without buttons. Anyways, no matter how I swung it I kept coming up empty on how to use stamps to make 1" buttons. It is impossible to bust out a detailed stamp to fit a button that size, beyond that, even if I could do it.... "ain't no body got time for that!" So I decided that I would make buttons out of old postage stamps. And thus- Stamps Expanded.

Let me know what you think.

Letterboxing Yearbook.

I have been playing a lot with stencils lately and have really found that they are my favorite kind of stamps. I like the play on light and dark and that shadows evolve to look like people.. My favorite thing to do now with carving is to make stencils out of pictures and use that as a template to carve. I have done celebrities, couples portraits, family portraits, pets and houses.  I just finished up a personal portrait LTC where I took a picture of myself dressed up for Rocky Horror Picture Show last October. I was in a party hat, a wig, I took the lenses out of sunglasses and spray painted them turquoise and then bought a bow tie and spray painted that too ( I spray paint everything). I was wearing white gloves and I looked very little like myself at all in the picture.  You may remember this picture. I definitely posted in on my blog when I was first starting to do the stenciled images.

Anyways. I carved this picture out and used it for this self-portrait.

So in between doing that I was also in correspondence with mmmtika because I found that one of her boxes was laying on the ground and the City ( DAMN THEM!) had cut down all the trees around the box, including the one that was attached to the tree. Anyways, even though we have talked time and time again via atlas quest I still found myself tip toe'ing around how to get the box back to her. I can relate to this as well with Water Lilly to whom I am harbouring a quilt block box for her until it is safe to replant. You end up knowing people online, and getting to know people at events or random running intos but when you are navigating those new relationships it is hard to know if you can trust the person and so on. It is almost like on-line dating haha. Weird. But still being able to have a familiar face in these situations is helpful and makes it a lot less weird.

 So all of these things got me thinking. How hularious and yet AWESOME would it be to have a series that is dubbed, "a letterboxing yearbook", and  it would house carvings done from stencils of portraits of letterboxers in the area. So you would put a stamped face to the letterboxer. I am hooked on this idea..... I have the camera, the determination, and it would make me laugh. I think I could do it for starhexen and bumble against their will given I have photographs of them but I won't resort to that sort of activity.

What do you think?

Anyone willing to send me pictures of themselves so I could maybe do it for the Day of Planting  this year?