It Came in a Dream...

          I've had letterboxing dream many times before but this was totally different. I had an idea for a box come to me in a dream! Well, in my dream Tyrus and I went to the Columbus Zoo. For some reason you had to climb up theses stairs as if you were going to go to the top of the water slides, but it led up to the touch pool. On the way up we had to find this beam that had this magnetic cage stuck to it that was really a letterbox. The stamp inside it was a key. As we were stamping in, this over weight, shirtless white guy in swimming trunk came up the stairs and saw what we were doing. He smiled and continued up to the touch pool.
On the way down from the touch pool Tyrus and I were talking about planting a new box. I wanted to plant a box about the Prohibition in the 1920's. The box was to be named "Speak Easy" and had some interesting stuff about it. You took the lid off and you would see what looks like a door. You then slide a piece to the left in the center of this "door" to see some eyes glaring at you with a speech bubble saying "password." You would then lift up the "door" to find the logbook and stamp inside. If you took it all out of the box it looks like a bar scene back in the "20's at a speak easy place.
Very interesting box. Who knows, maybe I'll try it out!

And who would have known that wanting to go to the zoo, planning out new letterboxes, and finishing The Great Gatsby would lead to a cool box!

-Catchow

SOHT- Our First Event

After a long week I can finally sit down and tell you all about my first event!!

You can check out more photos of the event here (when I get them up)

October 13th was the Southern Ohio Haunted Trail Letterboxing event. This was our first event. On the way there we ended up taking a wrong turn and briefly got lost. We pulled over to the side of the road and ended up by this really cool old, overgrown bridge. Tyrus and I got out of the car and I took some pictures while Mother Hen figured out where we were going.

After getting back on the road and going the right way we finally made it to Frankfort Eatery in Frankfort, Ohio. Well... we did get lost again... Google Maps led us to an area just outside where we needed to be with the exact street names. We kept driving around and found the location Google Maps told us to go and Mother Hen said "What? It's in a garage? I don't think that's right." So we drove around the neighborhood and asked a hobo looking guy on a bike where the Eatery was. He told us how to get there and we made it there on time! Tyrus and I jumped out of the car (after we parked :P) and grabbed our stuff and made it over to the Eatery. Our hand were shaking with excitement and we were greeted by the Rgang when we walked in.



We signed into the book and saw that Indiana Tim was the first to sign in! I knew he was going to try to come, but didn't know he made it! After signing in and writing my name on an orange name tag, I turned around  Granny Butterfly was right there ready to do an exchange. After the exchange I finally got to meet Tim! We sat down and Tim got invested with cooties from the children running around and I was doing exchanges with everyone. Tyrus joined us after putting the food in the back and for the next hour or so we did exchanges with others and traded some LTCs. After we finally got to sit down and eat we were still doing exchanges! So many people and it was so over whelming.

A lot of people left the Eatery so we decided to go find some local boxes. There were some printed out clues for boxes around the Eatery so Tim, Tyrus, Mother Hen, and I started our way out to find the boxes.

[Tyrus, Indiana Tim, Mother Hen]

After walking around trying to understand the clues we decided that we'd rather go to Grandveiw Cemetery. We all piled into Mother Hens car and we were off to the cemetery! Tyrus and I had a hard time keeping our eyes open on the way there. We had been up very late the entire week up to the event trying to get our costumes ready for the Ohio Renaissance Festival the day after the event. We found about a dozen boxes at the cemetery.

We went to the other side of the cemetery to find the second series but we got frustrated with some of the clues and decided not find the rest, plus, we were running down on time. When we found the first box, Tyrus emptied out his bag and found he had accidentally put box from the last series in his bag! After we stamped in we back tracked our way to the last box and put it back. Afterwards, we went back and continued on finding the boxes.

[Tyrus & Indiana Tim]

After we were done letterboxing at the cemetery, we made our way back to the Eatery to get some directions to the night boxing location since, well, we didn't print any directions off on how to get there. We got to the Eatery and found everyone was gone and it was closed! Luckily, Tim had a GPS on his phone and we were able to get the location and directions there. We then followed Indiana Tim to the night boxing location. On the way there we were following Tim and all of a sudden he quickly goes around something and then Mother Hen does too. Turns out there was a snake in the road!

We got to the location and turned out we were a bit late. It was getting dark and they had boxes out on the trail for people to find in day light. Tyrus and I ran over to Indiana Tim and Mother Hen and grabbing our bags and stuff, I said, "Come on! We're going boxing!" We then hurried over to the starting point and began our search for the boxes. Soon the day time boxes became night time boxes and had to find them in the dark. We had to do it as fast as we could too because they needed to start planting the actual night boxes. After the boxes were found we sat around the fire for a bit and helped Tim set up his tent. One of the little girls there decided she needed to show me all the secret boxes around the area and dragged me around pointing them all out. After all that fun we went back to the fire and waited for a group to get back from the night hike so we could have the clues to find the boxes.

It was interesting, night boxing. The Rgang gave us each a pen with a flashlight on the end of it. How nifty. Mother Hen chose to stay around the fire while we did some real night boxin'. We were the last to do the day boxes and the last to do the night boxes. Since we were the last on the trail the two boys who were scaring people on the trail got tired and didn't scare us. We didn't know this till we got to the second trail and Tyrus kicked a cardboard think down thinking someone was going to jump out at us! The series we found were from a claymation movie of which I hate the most. I HATE claymation. The only one I like is "Shawn the Sheep." There's just something about it that gets to me... creeps me out and I just... I just can' watch it. I pushed through though and got all the stamps. Creeped me out even more since it was dark and we though two boys were going to jump out at us.

After the first series were done we were ready for the next. The only problem was that they didn't have any clues. There was a group who were going through the trail again to see if they could find the boxes they were missing. They showed us where the first box was so we could see how they looked. It was a a neatly sewn pouch with glow in the dark fabric on the front. It was really cool other than the fact the the glow in the dark stuff was wearing off. We kind of just followed the group ahead of us so we knew the general areas where the boxes were. The last two or thee were the hardest because the glow stuff was completely gone. We did find them all! There were 12 boxes and it was all creatures that glow in the dark in some sort of fashion. They were very well done stamp and probably my favorite from that day.

Night boxing was really interesting and the second trail was really hilly so we had to try not to fall down the hills. It was fun but not something we will be able to do often since a lot of places are closed at dusk. After we finished the series we went back and chatted with some people and stamped the rest of the boxes around the area. After all the stamping and goodbyes we were off. It was almost midnight when we got home and I still had stuff to do. Ended up going to bed around 2a.m. because I was working on our final pieces to our costumes.

Over all, the event was pretty awesome. It was a good experience for being our first event. Can't wait for the next event!

Well if anyone is interested below is going to be some pictures and stuff from The Ren. Fest.

The day after the event we went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. All week we were working to get stuff done for SOHT event and the Renaissance. We got most of our stuff at the thrift store for our costumes. Our armor stuff is made out of craft foam from the craft store. After hours of working on our costumes we finally got them done and had it packed up so we could put it on when we got to the festival. The rain held off for most of the day but it got really windy. It was hard putting on our many layer and stuff with the wind blowing every thing.

We got in and started walking around and it wasn't even 5 mins before people started commenting on our costumes or coming up to us. So many people stopped us for our pictures. It was so awesome!! A few groups actually were chancing us down just to get our photo! Every time we went by this guys booth we would yell "Assassins!!" and we would have to take off running. There was also a few guys who spent their time trying to "kill" us. One came up and "slashed" our backs with his fake sword and it really hurt. We rode a camel and met a lot of people. It was really awesome.

Well, enough about that. Just a side thing and wasn't about letterboxing. well below are some pictures is you are interested!

Tyrus

Me

Assassins on a camel!!

Fighting a Templar

Check out more photos here (when I get them up)

~Catchow

Letterboxing Psyc. Paper

About two weeks ago I posted a request on the AQ boards for people to take a survey for my project for my psychology class. I know some were interested in my results. Below is the project I turned in. Word for word.
Thank you to everyone who took my survey! I only needed minimum of40 people to take it and 97 people took it!

I also got a perfect on my paper! :)

Letterboxer’s Hiking Activities

Is there a correlation between gender and hiking activities during letterboxing? This research question led me to my two hypotheses.  I hypothesize that most letterboxers are female and do not feel comfortable and/or safe hiking alone. I also hypothesize that  letterboxers hike one mile or less while letterboxing because most letterboxers live in urban areas that don't provide high-mile hiking areas, and most boxes are hidden in cemeteries. After the hypotheses were formed I used the survey method together to gather data to test my hypotheses.

           I created a seven question survey on surveymonkey.com, which I posted on a popular letterboxing website, atlasquest.com. My target population was those who participate in letterboxing. In one of the discussion boards I stated I was doing a research project for my psychology class about letterboxing. I did this on a Friday night and within a two day span I received over 90 completed surveys. The first three questions of the survey were for my first hypothesis:  I hypothesize that most letterboxers are female and do not feel comfortable and/or safe hiking alone.

1. Are you male for female?

            2. Do you hike alone while letterboxing? (if yes, skip question #3)

3. Do you hike with others because you don’t feel comfortable and/ or safe hiking alone?

           My last four questions were for my second hypothesis: I  hypothesize that letterboxers hike one mile or less while letterboxing because most letterboxers live in urban areas that don't provide high-mile hiking areas, and most boxes are hidden in cemeteries.

4. How many miles to you typically hike while letterboxing?

            5. Do you live in an urban area?

            6. Are high mile (1+ miles) hiking areas available where you letterbox?

7. Are most of the letterboxes you find hidden in cemeteries?

           There were 97 letterboxers who participated in my survey. For my first hypothesis, I found that 81.4% were female and 18.6% were male. Only 37.1% of those letterboxers hiked alone. The other 62.9% did not hike alone. For question three, 45.6% choose to hike with others because they did not feel comfortable and/or safe while hiking alone. The results from this question are not truly accurate because some letterboxers who answered “yes” to question two did not skip question three even though the instructions said to. For my second hypothesis, I learned that 23.7% of letterboxers hike one mile or less, 46.4% hike one to two miles, 24.7% hike two to three miles, 1.0% hike four to five miles, and 4.1% hike five plus miles. Next, 53.6% of letterboxers live in urban areas and the other 46.4% do not. In the areas they letterbox, 71.1% have high mile hiking areas provided and the other 22.9% are not provided with high mile hiking areas. Lastly, only 7.2% of letterboxers find boxes in cemeteries. The other 92.8% find boxes elsewhere.

           After analyzing my data, I have concluded that my first hypothesis is right but my second hypothesis is wrong. In my first hypothesis I was correct that most letterboxers are female and do not hike alone. The results make the hypothesis appear incorrect, but the data collection was flawed because people did not follow the directions stated in question two. If the subject answered “yes” to question two, then they should have skipped question three, but 7% of the participants did not skip the question. In my second hypothesis I was correct about most letterboxers living in urban areas, however, I was wrong about letterboxers in urban areas not being provided with high-mile hiking areas and most boxes being hidden in cemeteries.

           As a result of my two hypotheses I have concluded that there is a correlation between gender and hiking habits during letterboxing. Most letterboxers are female and do not feel comfortable and/or safe hiking alone, and even though most letterboxers live in urban areas, almost half hike one to two miles when they letterbox.

 

 

 

~Catchow

A Stamp for Indiana

A while ago I became great friends with a fellow letterboxer, Indiana Tim. More times then often, you will see us hanging out in the AQ chat room chatting. Well one day we were chatting about carving stamps and such when Tim told me that he tried carving a stamp of his little girl.
"Looks like a creepy skull!" he said. "Maybe I'll send it out and get it professionally done."
After a couple minuets of thinking I offered to carve the stamp for him.
Later I received a caricature drawing of a small child that I then carved. It didn't take too long, but I did end up reprinting the photo quiet a few times looking for the right size. I also added her name into the stamp. It was a pretty good carve and the fist time I had ever carved a caricature.
As a surprise I hand sewn (because I don't like sewing machines) a small horse draw-string bag for her to carry the stamp in. The stamp was carved for Tim but it was being given to his little girl and he didn't even know I had made the bag.
A few weeks later I mailed the package out to Indiana Tim. Within a few days he hand the package. He loved the stamp and the bag I made. I also managed to make him crack up when he read the card I wrote. I love making people laugh.
When he gave the stamp to his little girl she went to her mom and said, "Look mama! It's me!" She then wanted to see all of Tims stamps and the got all inked up from stamping their stamps.

I love making people happy and I love carving stamps for other people. Nothing makes me happier than to hear that I made someones day.

~Catchow

LB How 2s: LTCs

Ok, hold on tight! This is going to be a long one with TONS of pictures to help!

In this How 2s I am going to explain how to join an LTC tracker and begin your journey on making some LTCs. For now this is going to be the basics. There are many advanced things that I have yet to do when it comes to creating these cards.

To start off, what is an LTC?
"Short for Letterboxer Trading Cards, an offshoot of Artist Trading Cards (ATC), which itself is an offshoot of traditional trading cards such as baseball cards. Letterboxer Trading Cards must be 2.5"x3.5", or 64x89mm, with a base that has the thickness and consistency of card stock, and typically incorporate your signature stamp in some way" (AtlasQuest Letterboxing Glossary).

Signing Up

Before you start making any cards we first need to join a swap you would like to do.

Go to "My Page" and click on "Trackers."

 

 Next, look at the "Available" row and choose LTCs.

A huge list should then appear of what LTC swaps are available.

Click on a listed tracker that you may be interested in.

 



We are going to "join" this tracker for this tutorial. This is how the tracker will look before you join.
 

This tracker is currently open so you can join. You will also see that it has a max sign up of 15 people. Before you join you need to consider if you will make the deadline. In this case, the red arrow pointing to September 22, 2012 means that the host needs to have your cards by that date.

If it has a green arrow after the start date, that means you HAVE to send your cards on that date at the latest.

Now, join the tracker!!

 

 Now that you have joined, the screen should look like this. The host usually puts their address in the "Post" section that appears after you join. The host will have all the info you need for the swap listed in the description.

For this tracker, the deck of cards indicates that it is an LTC swap. The pyramids, indicate that it is a themed swap. For this tracker, the theme is "States."

 

 

Making LTCs

Now that you have signed up for this LTCs swap, it is time to make the cards themselves.

An LTC must be 2.5"x3.5", or 64x89mm. It also needs to be made of card stock or something with the consistency of card stock. I use not only regular card stock, but also card stock-like scrapbooking paper.

I recommend, if you have one, using a paper cutter and not just scissors to cut out your cards. It gives them a nice straight, smooth look to them.

This link shows the best way to get the most cards out of one sheet of different sized paper:

Cutting Templates 

 Next, you need to Hand Carve (Coming Soon) a stamp. For an LTC it is required that the stamp is hand carved. Once the stamp is carved, stamp it onto the cards that you cut out earlier.

Now that all your cards are stamped, you need to label the back of the cards.





 

The top of the card needs to have the name of the LTC you have made. At the bottom right corner you will put the number out of ___   i.e. 1/15, 2/15, 3/15, 4/15, ect.
You have a choise of making the card single, limited, unlimited, or not specified. Most cards are limited and will have the 1/# on the bottom right corner. If you are making an unlimited card you will just place one number in the corner like in the picture above.

 

After all the cards are done the proper thing to do is put them in trading card sleeves.

Not everyone who is hosting an LTC swap will require that you have sleeves. Most people put the LTCs in trading card Binder Sheets so the cards don't end up staying in the sleeves. Having the cards in sleeves are useful when doing single trades or trading at letterboxing events. Yes, you can trade your cards outside the swap you joined. If you join a swap that has a max of 15 people you can make more than that to trade with people outside the swap. Keep in mind, these are trading cards.

 

 

When all is done and you are ready to send your LTCs out to the swap host, you need to make a Self-Addressed Envelope. Now after you have created your self-addressed envelope don't just dump all your cards into the envelope. To minimise cost of sending your LTCs here is how you should put them Inside the Envelope.

When you send the cards for the swap send all that are needed. If 15 people are in the swap, send 15 cards. Yes, you will be getting back of your own cards because it is part of the set in the swap you joined. It also makes it much easier on the host to sort out cards.



After you send the cards to the host it may be awhile before you get your new cards. The host needs to receive all the cards and then make sure everyone gets one of each card.

And don't forget to include enough stamps for the host to send the LTCs back to you!

 

Hope this helped any one new to LTCs!

 

Check out some LTCs here:

Geometry Junkie's Blog

Dixie's "Art In Hand" Blog

CCL's Blog

 

Also, you can check out more on LTCs on atlasquest regarding some more advanced thing you can do with LTCs and other things. You can also join the LTC board on atlasquest to ask questions and see what's new in the LTC world.

 

If you have any questions feel free to ask me and I'll try my best to answer them!

 

 

~Catchow

 

LB How 2s: Micro Boxes

What is a micro box?

"Micro boxes, as the name implies, are very small letterboxes. These boxes open up the possibility of more clever and devious hiding places, and make it easier to prevent accidental discovery. They can be almost impossible to find without precise solving of the clues, and, despite their size, can be constructed to offer a surprisingly large stamp and logbook" (The Letterboxer's Companion by Randy Hall [1st edition] 71).

Micro boxes are neat boxes to find. When they are posted online they are listed as traditional letterboxes. When you go out searching for a box you don't know the size and some times they are micro boxes. You'll find them in small holes in trees, hidden in stone walls, and any where else you can fit a small box into.
A lot of times these boxes are are made from 35mm film canisters or small medicine bottles. Some may or may not have a log book depending on the size and the planter. Most times the log book will be rolled up into the canister. The stamps you might find in theses boxes are usually quiet small but you can find some pretty large stamps in them too.
Not all micro boxes are some sort of canister. One of my micro boxes is a Small glass bottle. The logbook is very small and rolled up into the bottle. You have to stick one finger in the bottle to pull the log book out. Now the stamp. It's smaller than a dime and is on the bottom of the cork that closes the bottle. Now since it's a glass bottle, I didn't want to send it out into the wilderness risking it breaking or getting very wet. Even though the glass was quiet thick I places it indoors.

You never know when you'll find a micro box. They often show how talented the carver might based on how well the stamp is carved. They are fun the find and often amazes you where these little things are hidden!

~Catchow

Wish the Rain Would Hold Perhaps?

Today was all based on the weather. Been raining a bit off and on the past couple of days and today was supposed to rain. We got going at 9am and it was gray out and cloudy. Surely it was going to rain. During the entire trip today it only sprinkled for a short amount of time.

Today our goal was to letterbox in Grove City. Left at 9am and got home at 2:30pm. My friend spirit Horse joined us for this adventure. Our first stop was at Concord Cemetery. Was a nice cemetery. Found 6 boxes there in total, one of which was a Hitchhiker Hostel. I had never found one of those before and it was pretty neat. Within the box was a stamp that stayed there and 3 HHs. If you take a HH you must leave a HH. Out of the 4 stamps in the box, all but one was a flower! That was interesting. How often would you come across that? I took the nonflower HH and left a nonflower HH. While we were stamping all the HH and such I felt like something small was biting my leg. I thought I just had something stuck to the end of my capris and it was poking me. Found out, we were being bitten by fire ants!! Fire ants in Ohio!!!! Got back in the car and rubbed my leg down with hand sanitiser. It helped a bit but not for long. We found 2 boxes that Pioneer Spirit planted. I really like his boxes. They seem to last a very long time. The 2 we found were both hidden in 2007. That's a good amount of time for a box!

Our next stop was Fryer Park. That was a neat park. We were looking for some stamps in a series of The Twelve Days of Christmas. These boxes were all over Grove City and we didn't find many of them. I really liked "Chariots of Fire" that was dedicated to those you died during NASA space missions. There was a rusty man hole that Tyrus sat on and he said "Now I'm going to have a rusty butt!" That was funny.... we searched the pine trees for the box and they were all prickly so no one really wanted to put their hand in the tree. We found the box and found a HH in it! it was so tiny and in this cute little tiny container. For a hand carved HH that was about the size of a dime, it was very well done. We took the HH and left the HH we took earlier.
After that we were headed into the woods in the park but we didn't know where the entrance to the path was. "We don't have to find these boxes if you all don't want to." I said. "What!? Morgan opting to skip a letterbox? Are you okay? You feeling well?" Mother Hen said. I covered half of my face up with the clues as every one was giggling, asking if they had the right person and that I wasn't traded with another. We found the entrance. Haven't boxed in the woods for a while so it was fun, wet but fun. We found the first box in the series and we all had to stand up and balance logbooks, stamps, and stamp pads since it was too wet to sit down. We progressed onward in search for the next box. We kept searching and searching and rereading the clues and we couldn't find the landmark we were looking for that led up to the box. As the rest of my group ventured forward along the trail in search for this land mark, I said, "Adventure Time!" and made my way into the woods. Through the brush and many cobwebs in my face, I found the huge fallen tree. I had to climb up on this wet log, move away branches to move forward, jump off the log,walk a little bit, jump back on the log, jump off it again at the end, and dig through some bark and wood to find the box. I stood up on the log, held the box in the air and yelled "I found it!" only to find out that none of them could find me in the woods. I made my way back covered in dirt and everyone gathered around to stamp the stamp. We almost gave up on the box. after we were done I ventured in the woods once again with Tyrus following at my heels to put the box back. There were many times that we almost walked through a big spider web with a fat spider on it, face first.

Next stop was City Hall. There were more of the "Twelve days of Christmas" boxes hidden there. of the three in that area we could could only find one. The other spots were weird and people working in the building could easily see through the window and watch you dig through bushes to find the boxes.

After that our last stop was at Windsor Park. There was a 3 stamp series there ans I was sad to find out that they had to retire the first stamp in the series. I guess I would too if I had to recarve it 3 times. the two that were active were an easy find and we stood there in the parking lot stamping away on the trunk of the car. Many people walked by and checkout what we were doing but non of them asked or stayed long enough to ask.

We left from there and dropped off Spirit Horse and was home in a couple of minuets. We ate lunch and headed over to my house. I jumped on the computer and logged all my finds and such and began writing this blog. I check AQ and saw there was a new plant just minuets from my house! I asked my mom to take us and a couple hours later we were off to find the box!
Got to the cemetery and found the box. We were first finders!! Tyrus and I have been first finders only once before but the rest of my family hasn't. We took the "First Finders" card in the box and stuck it in my family logbook. After that my mom and little brother were off to find the boxes Tyrus and I planted. I had to help Gavin with all the clues and ended up stamping everything for him. He is well capable to do it on is own but he wont focus long enough to do anything. As we were stamping in my last box, I found that once again I was near some fire ants... this time they didn't bite me.

After all of the adventure today I'm ready to sleep for all of winter! The rain held off and we were eaten my fire ants but it's all for the love of letterboxing!

Oh! And I can't forget! Today's Llama Awards!

Dancing Skeleton by Transient Toadstool
Happy Howloween by Transient Toadstool
Wish you had on the trail perhaps? by Pioneer Spirit 
Wish you had before going on the trail perhaps? by Pioneer Spirit 
Chariots of Fire by Halloweeners

~Catchow