Our First Letterbox

We went out yesterday for our first letterboxing excursion.  (Right before lunch, which may not have been the best time.)  We got on Atlas Quest to find a box that was marked as active, and chose the "Hoppy Easter" series at Titlow.  (So much for exploring new places--but I thought it would be good to start with one that we could actually find!)



At the site of our first box!  It was under a log and fairly easy to find.   I did take some pictures before this, and then realized that I didn't have a card in the camera.  (Doh!)



We put our stamp in the box's book...



... and put their stamp in our book.  (It occurs to me that when you're out in the woods, it might be difficult to find a hard surface to stamp on.)



"Hoppy Easter" is a series of six boxes, so we set off to find some more. 



We couldn't find the second one, but the third and fourth boxes were pretty easy.



Kate puts a box back in its hiding place. 



We had to get home for lunch, so we didn't have time to look for the other two right then.  (Maybe next time we should pack some sandwiches.) The kids got a few minutes at the playground before we left.



Doug's mom is coming next week. Maybe we can do some letterboxing with Grandma!

In which we consider taking up letterboxing, and make a stamp

I've had the thought that perhaps we should try geocaching.  We went with some friends once, when Kate was really little.  It seems like it would be a good way to get out and explore new places.  Doug and I are perfectly happy to just explore for the sake of exploring, but I thought Kate might get more into it if there was some sort of goal and payoff.  But we don't have a GPS, so that does present a bit of a problem.

We had a ward activity not long ago which included a brief presentation on fun (and cheap) summer activities, and one friend mentioned that her family has been enjoying letterboxing.  "Oh yeah, " I thought, "We could do that!"  Letterboxing is like geocaching before geocaching was invented.  (Sort of... the two exist concurrently now.)

The two things you need for letterboxing are some kind of little notebook and a stamp.  The book was easy--I have several little books from my bookbinding class at BYU that I've never done anything with.  I thought it would be fun to have Kate draw a dragon and then turn that into a stamp.





We decided to use the one in the middle (that's Toothless!)



I got a block of this rubber stuff called "Moo Carve" at Artco, and did a graphite transfer to trace the dragon onto it.



Carving!  Doug and I had the idea we were going to do some linoleum block carving, several years ago, and got a set of tools.  They've only been used on potatoes and they're rather rusty.



All done!  I need to get some kind of wood to mount on the back, but it works fine for now.



Kate added a scene to this one.

After this she wanted to make more stamps!  I suppose we'll have to do that.