Still here, carving away.

I haven't skipped town for sunnier pastures (yet), I've been happily carving and planting away in anticipation of OPAL on February 2nd. Nothing like an actual event to inspire me!  I'm in the double digits now... and won't stop until I run out of time.

Today's carve, transferred onto pink stuff with a blender pen...

But, since my last post: I've gone to my first letterboxing event, met some cool carvers, found a number of boxes, planted a number of boxes, planted an HHH and a mess of HHs, and carved to my little heart's content.

One new thing I've discovered is the blender pen.  I've used acetone on cotton in the past to try to get transfers from toner-based copies onto my carving mediums - usually to much disappointment resulting in the need to retouch the images by hand.  But, the new blender pen - which contains xylene - works in the exact same way, but in the convenient form of a marker.  Also, because it's specific purpose is to do these types of transfers, the quality of the active chemical is such that I'm getting much better transfers.

Can't wait for spring and some proper letterboxing... This freezing cold is starting to get to me.

Carve, carve, carve!

So the holidays are now long over, and I managed to hide one box and one hitchhikers' hostel over the holidays, though no finds for me.  Not long after, both boxes were found (which I find comforting - I hid something someone wanted to find and it was found before it could go missing, phew).  Tragically, I still have one box that I planted last September that hasn't been found.  It has a time limit on it due to the impending destruction of the location of the hide, so I feel bad for the little feller...

This weekend has been very fruitful on the box creation front.  I carved five stamps, completed three boxes, managed to hide one, as well as took advantage of DeSerres' current sale on ColorBox inks.  I have two series on the go, and various singles boxes finished or in the works, all leading up to Ontario Plant a Letterbox Day.  Crossing fingers and hoping for the best.