It was an intense weekend. Spent Saturday driving an hour and back to Raleigh, to get art and shipping supplies at Jerry's Artarama and JoAnn Fabrics. Unpacked my art from the last exhibition, and started cutting foam core for my package. Spent all of Sunday doing some last minute work on the website, which is SO close to being finished. Today put the packages together for MAD. This is the first time I will not be transporting the pillowcases myself. My usual method is to iron them at the hotel, and deliver them to the site hanging from a hanger by safety pins with a dry cleaning bag draped over them.
I decided that they needed to be shipped flat, so they did not have to be ironed, but neither of the pieces can have anything on top of the embroidered area, because the eyelashes and curls would be crushed. I used a strongbox from Art Float. They deliver it to your door looking like this. (Longtime readers, note that the ugly beige tasteful wallpaper still covers our front hall... it's been a busy year.)

After ironing the pillowcase for "Ebb.", I positioned it on the foamcore, and covered it with glassine with a hole cut for the eyes.
taped down the glassine,
then covered it with a double layer of foam core with holes cut in them.
Taped more glassine over the eye area.
In the box.
"My Young Lover" required a buildup of six layers of foam core to not squish the curls. First I thought to use curlers to hold the curls in place during shipping, then decided that they added too much weight pulling on the hair, and remembered that my hair used to tangle in curlers.
I spent over an hour grooming the hair, separating each curl, combing it around my finger with a wide tooth comb, then coating each curl with water and a little bit of conditioner, like the two curls above. When finished, I "scrunched" all the hair and put a plastic shower cap over it, taping down the edges, but letting the center puff out, so as not to squash the hair. Then I packed it as I did "Ebb."
Called Fed Ex for a pickup at 4 pm, then made dinner because my husband and I both forgot to eat lunch today. The pillows were shipped separately, as well as a framed piece. Exhausted, but gonna do some painting before bed.