Sending My "Imaginary" Friends Mail

I'll admit, I have more imaginary friends than I do friends in real life (IRL). If one were to count my Facebook friends, I would look like the most extroverted person in the world. Of course, we all know that we need the IRL people--the ones capable of hugs or doing lunch. We need them to come to parties (or host them). We need them to help us move. Obviously, the effect of those IRLs is much deeper and many more blog words than that.

But the truth is, I also really need the ones I've met via Facebook and various online art groups. I need the artists I've "friended" so that their art could feed my soul on a daily basis. I need to carry on conversations about techniques and supplies. I need to share my artistic successes and failures. And frankly, my IRL friends aren't interested. 

One such person I've "met" is Nancy Gene Armstrong. I'm a bit of a fan girl. I love everything about Nancy's work. She belongs to that group of artists who love vintage and its textures: the old black and white photos, the book papers, the sewing notions and various ephemera. She also knows the value of white space.

Nancy recently expressed interested in receiving some art mail. She tossed it out to her virtual friends. I raised my virtual hand as high as it would go and squealed, "Me! Meeeeeee!"

She said sure, and she sent me this: 

It came looking like any other letter, but when I opened it, it waterfall-ed down to my shins. It's long and lovely accordion-fold art. I love it and can't wait to hang it.

Meanwhile, I had been working on my own offering. I like to work on several things at once. Lately, I've been working within a particular color scheme, just to keep things cohesive. I chose copper, white, black, kraft, and any nearby shades.

This measures 8 1/2" x 11." I didn't send her the original, but I scanned it and created and envelope out of it.

 While working on larger projects, inevitably I find myself using scraps to make ATCs (Artist Trading Cards). These will be sent to another lady with whom I'm in a "Tick-Tock" ATC swap. [Side note: The moment I wrote that sentence, I had an 80s-90's moment and thought of the Color Me Bad Song...Remember? Anyone? Anyone? Never mind...It's a naughty song anyway.]

 I ended up making Nancy 4 postcards. Sadly, I was silly and got excited and sealed them up in their package before I took individual photos of the postcards, but I did scan them for future use. So you see the swank lady postcard and the butterfly postcard below her.

 Again, here's a second scan. Ignore the two ATCs you've already seen. Here are the other two postcards I sent Nancy. The top one with the star and the other featuring sewing imagery.