Preparing to Plant

As I mentioned a few months back, one of my projects this summer was carving a letterbox stamp series in honor of my favorite movie. Well, after holding on to my precious stamps for a little too long, it was finally time to let them go into the wild where other people can enjoy them! We hid them this past weekend, but here's a peek at the work we put in to making sure they'd be safe out there in the big world. This may not be super interesting to some, but this is just giving you an idea of the work we go into to plant letterboxes, and maybe if you're a boxer, it could give you some new ideas. :)

My sewing machine! I found it at an estate sale - besides a few character flaws it works great!

I used some scrap material I had to make little pouches for the stamps. I guess it may seem over the top to some, but I really like these stamps and hope they will be around for a long time. It was hard enough for me to have to part with them! Another thing I tried doing for the first time was gluing a thick foam layer to the back of the stamps to make them easier to use.

  

With 9 boxes to plant, we got creative with the containers we used - it's not easy to find a good, sturdy, waterproof container! It made it easier that for 8 of the 9 boxes, I was only hiding a stamp and no logbook. We usually use Nutella or peanut butter containers, but we didn't have any on hand and we were not about to start eating entire jars of Nutella! ;) Thanks to Mr. Garlic Powder and Ms. Ibuprofen for giving up their homes for this very worthy cause.

We've seen stamps hidden in camouflage covered, water-proofed bags around the country, but not many (if any!) in Tucson. Hopefully they will last well - but again, they're only holding stamps, so I don't have to worry about a logbook here.

The final stamp is hidden in a good ol' Lock 'n' Lock container. 

Tada! Plenty of space for hitchhikers. :)

The logbook, all ready to be filled with finders!

Oh, and there's a little prize waiting for the first to find my treasure. ;)

This part may be the most complicated part of planting a box. The carving is fun - especially when it turns out well - the planting can be a challenge, and clue writing may need many revisions before I get it right, but there's so many details to think about between the carving and the planting. How am I going to make this series last as long as it possibly can? Hopefully all this hard work will pay off!