There is just something undeniably special about receiving a handwritten letter delivered to your real world mailbox.
I have some good friends who own a paper company. In fact, we first met this lovely husband and wife team 17 years ago when my husband and I were designing our wedding invitations. Kevin and Lori from Of the Earth Handmade Paper create amazing botanical papers.
One day while visiting their shop geeking out on paper products I had an idea! They make these flower-seed paper cards that when planted grows wildflowers. I thought "what if I created unique little pieces of art and then hand-wrote out of-the-blue letters to people?" The idea was to ask the letter recipients to then plant the piece of art/letter in their garden and watch the art grow.
I wanted to challenge myself to writing seven art cards in 7 days. However, that didn't really manifest as I had hoped and it took me a bit longer to complete the project. Perhaps the middle of summer wasn't the best time to make the commitment, but nevertheless, I completed it in exactly 1 month!
The wildflower-seed paper, I have to admit, did not handle my watercolor and colored pencil to well. But I think by the end, I had some pretty good work arounds. It just goes to show that the whole "try try again and you will succeed" saying has some truth. In the end, I was really happy with how they turned out.
The above image is a sampling of the cards I wrote. I wrote to good friends, Facebook friends that I don't really know that well in person, a prisoner pen-pal at Pelican State Prison , a friend of a friend and my mom.
So, who have you written a letter to lately? Do you even send letters anymore? If it's been a while, give it a try. Try writing a letter to someone out-of-the-blue. Not because it's their birthday, but just because.
Who knows, we may too open our mailbox someday and find a personal and special letter in the mail addressed to us...it sure would beat the piles of junk coupons and credit card offers that are usually in there.