Tools, Techniques, and Treats 2014

I know. It's been forever. I'm a senior in high school and the work has been piling up and there have been so many scholarship applications and such I've had to do. Well now that we have seen the last of this winter(hopefully) it's time to get out and letterbox.

Mother Hen and I went to the Tools, Techniques, and Treats event hosted by Gypsy Ladybug and Cookie Cutter. I am so glad that we went to this event. I learned so many things that I've been wanting to learn and everyone was so helpful.

I got all of my stuff ready and together to leave Saturday morning at 7am for and hour and a half drive to Greenville. 

We decided to wait until we found a Time Hortons to stop for breakfast. I was trying to find a TH location on my phone along I-70 and just could find one. We gave up and was ready to get off the next exit for some food and low and behold a Tim Hortons. While there, eating my blue berry muffin and smoothie, I realized I forgot the suet donation for the park at home. I knew I would forget something. I always do. Luckily there was a Walmart across the street so we picked up some suet and bird seed. However, this made us late(plus we got a little lost...) and so we missed the first log making class but that was ok.

Got there and the nature center was pretty cool. It's different from the one a volunteer at but it has a lot more classroom space which was nice(plus a kitchen).
 

 

 

I tried packing all of my supplies in the fewest and smallest bags I had. I hate having so many bags and stuff when I travel. I ended up with my little scrapbook travel case full of my ink and stuff and then an old laptop bag I keep all of my carving stuff in. I also had my personal bag, magnify glass and large paper cutter. My plan was to carve at least one stamp and cut out LTC cards from card stock. Yeah that didn't happen.
 

As soon as we got there we were swarmed by people who wanted to do exchanges. After the first few exchanges I found out I grabbed the wrong logbook. I have two little orange logbooks. One is for exchanges and personal travelers and the other actually goes with one of the boxes from my event I hosted from last July. So I ended up doing all exchanges on regular paper so I could then cut and paste them into my exchange logbook.

We did a lot of exchanges for about the first two and half hours and it was a bit overwhelming. Cookie Cutter showed me how to do the acetone transfer but the images I brought were print on an inkjet printer so we had to copy the image and print it on a toner printer. The transfer was awesome but I have a inkjet printer at home so I still need to find a different type of transfer. I think I may try the parchment paper transfer. I did get to carve a little bit of my new stamp. I've decided that there are some solo LTCs I want to do so I've dropped most of the LTC trackers I'm in. 

Mother Hen got us some needle carvers and Gypsy Ladybug taught us how to carve with them. I think they are pretty cool and who would have thought that you could have using a needle! I've just been getting into knife carving, which I like, and I'm hoping that the needles will help me do the tiny detail I'm doing now. I did manage to get some more of my Bigger on the Inside stamp done to make more LTCs. I've been using StazOn ink which smells bad, is very expensive, but have a very good color to it.

Lunch was great. People are so good about separating the peanut products from the rest of the food(mostly). There was so much to eat. I love pot lucks with so many options. The night before I spend 3 hours making homemade corn bread muffins and 4 dozen of them. About 2 dozenish were eaten but that just means I have plenty for the next few days(I love cornbread). Someone made this shredded creamy potato stuff and it was soooo good. So good. There was like a million cupcakes too but I didn't have any. I didn't know if they were lemon or some other gross flavor so I spared myself from that tragedy. But with most potlucks, you eat until you are full but you want to continue eating, so it becomes a toss up of "to eat or not to eat."

After lunch was more exchanges and some chatting and such.
 

 

 We went to Cookie Cutter's paper painting class which was really cool. I'll just have to figure out what I will do for my next cards.

 

We also went to the logbook making class. I was so happy to get to learn to make log book. I've been wanting to learn how to make them. They are an upgrade from what I usually make. 
 

 

In the room we were doing classes in has some pretty cool animals in little exhibits. My favorite one was the turtle one. You could get underneath it and see the turtles from below.

 

After the classes we were planning on getting the traditional boxes at the nature center but they already took out the outdoor boxes. We ended up stamping those in at our table but we got to find the ones hidden inside.

I really enjoyed the event. On the way home we accidentally ending up in Indiana...but we were only there for a short while. We stopped at Steak 'n Shake, which was packed, and finally got home. Boy was I tiered but had such a great time. Can't wait to get some new LTCs and boxes done.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I have a little dog names Chuck that travels with me and I'll take pictures of him and post the on Facebook. Feel free to check out his page!
 

~Catchow