The 100 Box Roundup: Part 2

Now, where were we?

 This continues from an earlier post...

Off to my first full letterboxing event down in St. Thomas, and planted Annandale House on my way home in Tillsonburg. Had no idea where/how to plant it before getting there, so I brought with me planter’s pouches and different sized Lock N’ Locks to respond to whatever I found. Found a great little spot in the porch, and Bob’s your uncle. This image was designed by yours truly by manipulating a full colour image. I was surprisingly happy with the outcome.

Next, I planted a series I had carved for a Joss Whedon LTC swap – Can’t Stop the Signal.  I loved doing the carvings, but I’m really not cut out to be an LTC person. That was the last LTC ring I did – likely the last I’ll ever do.

The Purloined Letter letterbox was one I put together after putting some research into cryptography. I am terrible at ciphers. And you know what? I also don’t like doing them. Hypocritical since I have some cipher-based boxes that I planted subsequent to this one… But this one doesn’t have even a lick of cipher in it – steganography all the way. Loved putting this image together. It really does tie into Edgar’s story… I’m sad this box hasn’t had more finds.

Next were some bugs to go along with carves by the immeasurably talented Fiddleheads and her Up the Garden path set of series to go in the Royal Botanical Gardens.  Even after some great hides, a couple of hers went missing pretty quickly after planting, which is sad. But I love RBG and will definitely get back out there for some more planting, methinks.

With a lot of planning, and learning to use software on my computer I never use, I put together the audio clue for Numbers Station and planted the box. I’m sad there’s only two finders on this box, because it’s my personal favourite and I put my heart and soul into the box. I put together the audio clue using Garage Band on my laptop… I found some great audio tracks for static online (who knew?), actually played the tune of Yankee Doodle that you hear using my keyboard, put together the clue and read it myself. Yes, that’s me in the recording. I put on that voice to sound more like real numbers stations to make it real creepy. Mixed the music, the various static tracks, and submitted it to the very friendly Jackbear for the Letterpod.

Next up, I designed a large touristy stamp for Hamilton which I cut up and hid all over the City for a series called The $1 Tour of Hamilton.  Perhaps I’m psychic, because in the course of carving and planting this box, I ended up being offered a job on the other side of the GTA that I couldn’t turn down, making this series one of the last I was able to plant before I moved and hitting some of the places I wanted to get to before I left. I really like this series, but I think the length of the journey to get all of these boxes may be a deterrent from finders going after these ones. Hope not, this is my favourite series and worth the search.

As a treat for myself after this move, I bought myself one of those table-mounted lighted magnifiers to help with the fine carving – and what a difference it made! The better carvings, along with my new-found desire to make nice logbooks, is what I think made A Touch of Voodoo  into a purple diamond box. Thanks everyone for your very generous ranking!

OPAL 2012 encouraged me to do some more library boxes, and for this year I made some new self-enclosed magnetic library letterboxes for a Whodunit series for Holmes, Poirot, Marple, and Drew. I should note that back here on the author’s side of this blog I can see that my post on the making of that logbook has the most views of any of the non-clue posts. I guess folks like how-to posts… I’ll get on that!

After finding Fiddleheads’ most excellent night letterbox, Looking for Night (and being totally creeped out by the sounds a cedar forest makes at night), I decided to try my hand at some urban night boxes. That led to By Moonlight being planted on the main drag of Unionville. Difficult stamps to carve, since they are mostly positive space, and I think harder to stamp with to get a clear image. Something I hope to improve on in the future.

Water trickling down the mountain - Suraksan, Seoul, South Korea

Next, I flew to Seoul, Korea, to have a lovely time with my sister, and couldn’t help but plant a box while there, Love in Suraksan.  It was a beautiful and charming place, and really, a letterboxer’s paradise in terms of urban/forest hides since there are mountains right in the middle of town – but very few letterbox clues that I could find. Still no finds on this one, and quite frankly, I only ever really expect that I will get one attempt on it and then it will be lost in the sands of time. But in the unlikely – but not impossible – chance that I can contribute to a developing letterbox culture there, I’m more than happy to do so :)

So, on the flip side of that visit, I came home with a cute store-bought stamp. I know, I know. But it was cute! And it was a cat! And it pretty much summed up my trip! So, together with some other touristy ephemera, this stamp has been planted in my nearby library as a Korean Souvenier. C’mon. You’ll likely end up at that library for other boxes anyway. Don’t bust my chops.

Finally, at 98, I knew I wanted to do a cute little pair of boxes that would be perfect to round out my first 100. Guarding is a pair of boxes containing Kyoke and Nishibi, guardians of the location(s?). I was happy to again put together another visual clue and am working on a couple others for the future.

So that sums up those first 100 boxes… Hope you enjoy finding them as much as I do planting them!