Please click through to the shiny new Friends & Faux blog – it lives! And we have updates on the first postcards, already. 🙂
Tag: Friends & Faux
Friends & Faux is back!
I first hosted Friends & Faux back in 2010 and although slightly fewer project postcards made it home due to my moving house (twice) than might otherwise have done, it was still an awesomely fun project to co-ordinate. The project postcards feature ‘gallery’ spaces for 8 artistamps/faux postage stamps, and are filled up as they are passed from one mail artist to the next before the completed card finally returns home. I recently compiled 3 mini-zines showcasing the completed postcards that arrived home safely. And I’ve also been preparing for a re-launch of the project…
Friends & Faux (version 2) has a new logo, plus its very own blog where I will be posting regular updates on postcards sent out into the world, progress reports from participants as they add their artistamps, and, of course, the homecoming celebrations! I will also add random faux postage/mail art snippets, on occasion. During F&F Version 1, I was alerted to the fact that some of my handmade postcards did not withstand the rigours of multiple mailings too well (peeling surfaces etc) so I have had the new postcards professionally printed to hopefully avoid a similar fate. And if I move house again (please join me in hoping not!), I have implemented a new way of accessing the postcard return address, so hopefully I will be able to keep on top of any unexpected changes much better this time around..,
As of yesterday, the first 20 postcards are on their way out to who knows what adventures in the world, and more will follow in the near future. 
If you would like to learn more about the project, please visit the F&F blog, and if you would like to join in the project, you will find a brand new Friends & Faux Filately section in theTangleStore. In fact, you can request an F&F postcard as an absolutely free add-on with any purchase at all from the TangleStore or ETPrintworks. More news to follow, as it occurs! 🙂
I’ll let you into a secret…
…do you remember the Friends & Faux mail art project I hosted back in 2010? Well, it’s about to return! I’m currently in the process of building a new blog so that updates can be kept together all in one place. Due to moving house multiple times following the inception of the first run of the project, I did sadly let it slide off the back-burner once the initial wave of postcards was sent out. If you helped me track the project by forwarding a pic of one of the project postcards, though, please rest assured your reward (mini zine documentation) will finally be on the way to you within the next week. And I promise I have learned from my mistakes and will be far more efficient, this time around! Full details of the new project to follow shortly…
While I was working on the new Friends & Faux blog yesterday, I was reminded of one of the contributors to the very first F&F postcard – Beanie Mouse! Beanie is star of the Found Art Blog, c/o Andrea McNeill. Together, they create and then ‘lose’ labelled artwork around the south of England and the rest of the world, while the blog documents all the artwork as it is lost and then found again by happily unsuspecting members of the public. As I was browsing, I soon learned that Beanie is a somewhat prolific mail artist and artistamp creator. Above, you can see Beanie with Postcard #1 after adding his stamp, but this barely scratches the surface of his vast catalogue (album?) of work:
Photos used with kind permission of Andrea McNeill. Please visit Found-Art for further adventures of Beanie Mouse!
More wanderers return
A year since this project began, so far 8 Friends & Faux postcards have made it home (the rest are still travelling – no casualties that I’m aware of, so far!). I’m so happy with the progress of this project and the fascinating artwork that has appeared as a result. This month – as seems to have been the case each time so far – 2 more postcards arrived home within a week of each other: #21 (which began its journey with The Letter Writers Alliance & continued via some of my most talented friends & mail artists from arts/crafts swapping site, Swap-Bot) & #56 (a stunning collection of almost exclusively hand-drawn or handpainted artistamps). Thank you so much to everyone who has kept & is keeping this project going.
Friends & Faux – more wanderers return!
My apologies for both the brevity and tardiness of this post. The first 2 of these postcards returned home in early January and despite best intentions (mostly due to the sudden preparations for moving house) failed to give them the fanfare they deserved upon arrival. They arrived within a day of each other which I did find entertaining. The third arrived right at the end of January. I am supposed to be packing right now (the postcards themselves are now packed, along with everything but my laptop) so I will not comment further, and instead allow these well-travelled postcards to speak for themselves: 🙂
To those who have requested to join the Friends & Faux project since December, I extend further apologies. There are a couple of you that I promised postcards to but have not yet sent. These will now be despatched after I unpack at the new place. At this point, I am also closing the project and will not be sending any additional postcards out after these last few. The time has come to sit back & watch the postcards travel under their own momentum, and – hopefully – find their way back to me. If you have custody of a postcard ready to embark upon the final leg of its journey, please contact me for the new postal address. However, if you send or have sent to the address printed on the card, it will still reach me, as all my post will be re-directed. Thank you to everyone who has helped keep this project moving! 😀
Friends & Faux: the postcards’ progress continues…
Here are the latest updates from the Friends & Faux project. Great to see that some of the earlier cards are still happily travelling the world. #26 just has one space left to be filled, so hopefully that one will be coming home before too much longer – will keep you posted!
Cards below, clockwise from upper left:
F&F 17, F&F 21, F&F 38, F&F 55, F&F 61 and F&F 26.
Friends & Faux – another wanderer returns!
The third Friends and Faux postcard has made it home!
(Well, actually the 33rd…)
This postcard has not travelled as far and wide as some – it first travelled to Canada…then stayed there! But it still displays a great selection of artistamps, including 2 hand-carved beauties for true mail art ‘traditionalists’ 😉 . I especially love Misti Ko’s additional hand-carved cancellation mark – sweet touch! It should also be noted that a true mail art celebrity has hereby joined the project: Anna Banana, prominent & proactive mail artist over the last few decades, I’m very happy to welcome you to the Friends & Faux fun. 🙂
We also have updates on several more postcards, including another celebrity contribution, with the return of Beanie Mouse. You can read the full photo-story on the found-art blog – there’s even a separate post showing Beanie Mouse making his own artistamps, and flipping through his album! The other postcards that have touched base but continue to travel are 21, 27, 42 and 45:
…and just as I was posting this, another update arrived! F&F 59 is another one that is going Canada crazy: 🙂
Don’t forget if you would like to join the project & add your own artistamp to a Friends & Faux Postcard, just send me an email. Likewise, if you have added your own artistamp to a card already, please drop me a quick line with a photo/scan of the postcard so far (plus your name and address) to receive a FREE zine at the end of the project (sometime still in the dim and distant future…).
Special request: Have you received a Friends & Faux postcard but can’t think who to send it on to? Please get in touch using the link above.
Friends & Faux: the Postcards’ Progress
It’s only a couple of weeks since my last report on the Friends & Faux project, but the updates have been rolling in, so I thought it was time to share. 🙂
First up is Beanie Mouse, a contributor to Friends & Faux #1, whose contribution I failed to highlight at the time. To make amends, here he is watching the glue dry on the stamp he has just applied to the postcard. You can see more pics of Beanie Mouse inspecting the mail he receives, and even with gluestick in hand at the Found-Art Blogspot.
In the last month, I have sent out a further 16 postcards – you can track their progress here. Or you can request a postcard to be sent for you to add your own artistamp by simply dropping me a line. If a mouse can do it, so can you! In the meantime, here are the updates received for postcards 26, 32 & 33…:
Friends & Faux – the first wanderers return!
It was with complete lack of prescience that I opened two envelopes that dropped onto my doormat, this morning. They were both from overseas, but I receive letters and mail art of all kinds, every day, so I had no reason to believe that these particular envelopes held anything of especial significance (beyond the usual happiness at receiving interesting mail). So to say I was somewhat excited when I opened the first envelope to discover the completed face of Friends & Faux Postcard #1 is something of an understatement! It has travelled from the UK to Australia, back to the UK, to the U.S.A. to Argentina and finally home, with wonderful artistamps added at every step of the journey. 
The back of the postcard is almost as interesting, with the over-labelled addresses, plus postage stamps and postmarks from the various countries it has visited en route:
I was thrilled enough at the prospect of documenting the return of Postcard #1, but my happy mail day did not end there – oh no! Upon opening the second envelope, in a state of equal unawareness as I had the first, I was amazed to see the return home of a second Friends & Faux postcard, this time #8!
How curious/coincidental that I should receive them both on the same day, later in the same week that I had posted my first update on the project. Both cards must, of course, have been mailed before my update post which just intensifies the level of happy coincidence.
I was even more surprised by the return of Postcard #8 than #1, as I had received no updates on its progress whatsoever, since it left my hands. I know it first travelled to the U.S.A. and returned home via Australia, but where did it stop off, in between? Here I acknowledge the failure in my postcard design –
I have spaces for names and dates, but not locations (or means of contact). D’oh! So if you are reading this & happen to know the locations of Kit Gonzales-Moore, ASKA, T-Lea or Pete Spence, please do drop me a line to let me know, so that I can update the Postcard Log accordingly.
But regardless of my shortcomings in logging the in-transit progress of these postcards, I am very grateful to all who contributed to them en route! Thank you for your creative additions and for keeping the cards moving. 🙂 I really didn’t expect any of the cards to make it home so soon, so I am super-pleased with this result, and now even more eagerly awaiting the return of more.
There is currently no deadline on joining the Friends & Faux project, so if you would like your very own postcard to add your very own artistamp, please get in touch, and I will set the wheels in motion. I’m so excited about this project now! Can you tell? 😀
Friends & Faux – beginnings
As the Going Postal project draws to a close (end August),
the Friends and Faux project is still barely in its infancy! 
For this project, I am sending out postcards, stamped by the Local Post of Tangledom, and asking recipients to add their own faux postage stamp to the cad – then pass it on. There is space on each postcard for 8 artistamps, which once full – I hope! – will return home to me, so I can document their journey. Anyone who adds an artistamp to one of the (numbered) project postcards and sends a scan/photo to me of their contribution before mailing it onward will receive a free copy of…whatever zine emerges, once the project ends…!
Click here for full details.
So far, only 34 numbered Friends & Faux postcards are ‘out there’ in the world! I have been logging their journeys here. But I will be sending out a new batch soon. Would you like to take part? Just drop me a line with your name and postal address and a new postcard will be logged to meander in your direction. Have you requested a postcard previously and not received it? Please get in touch again & I will send you a new postcard.
Friends and Faux Postcard #1 (shown below) is the best-travelled so far, having reached (and been despatched from?) it’s 4th destination. Sadly, I have lost the scan I was sent by recipient #2, but here is how it looked after its first stop:
Can’t wait to see how different it looks if/when it makes it home!
And here are a couple more postcards-in-progress, currently wending their way around the world… As you can see, anything goes, in terms of style & embellishment. For the sake of uniformity, I used the same TangleStamp to start each card (although I might now begin varying which I use), but the postmark design already shows 2 variations, and the next batch will show my most recent acquisition/variation. But just a note, you do not have to have your own postcard stamp to play this game! It’s all about the artistamps:
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