Free Spirits

You go with the squeal of gears, spinning
around the merry-go-round, up and down;
carnival music thrums your ears and you laugh
and reach for the shiny brass ring (three will get you
a free ride on the beast of your choice);
your long hair streams behind you
and your summer dress billows up, caught
in the lift and suck of passing wind...

Carousel Horses was the theme here, not hard to see that. Making these cards brought back some forgotten memories to me, and I can't help but feel sad that the carousels in my area have long since been torn down to make way for strip malls and parking lots. I've dashed off a quick, impromptu poem (my first in days) to try to explain how I felt when I rode the carousel many years ago. I've always had a soft spot for carousels, and always marveled; no, reveled, in the art and craftsmanship of each pole beast I've had the good fortune to meet.

We're off to see the wizard again. Oz swap #2 was harder to do than the first swap - I kind of got tired of doing them and ran out of ideas along the way so I duplicated two cards from the first set. (I was suffering from brain drain and I had a deadline to meet, so shoot me.) Wometimes, too much of a good thing can kill all the fun. But still, I think they came out nice. And I do love the Wizard of Oz. So I'll have a page and a half of Oz in my ATC book, and that's just fine by me.

Poly vous fransay? (pardon my spelling here, I have no idea how to spell that phrase and I'm just too damned lazy at this moment to go look it up, so there)

Ah, Paris. So romantic, so picturesque, so French.

These cards weren't really swaps - they were donated to the Komen Breast Cancer Fund Raiser. I think these cards are my best work yet. I hope they bring in some good money for the cause.

Mad About Color was the name of this swap. I got into playing with oil pastels two of them use glitter glue, the rest are oil pastel). I love oil pastels and the way you can blend them. They remind me alot of fingerpainting, so using them makes me feel like a kid again, and I like that.

Top 'O the morning to ye! Happy St. Patty's Day.

Meow, meow. Here come the kitty cats! Mice and bugs beware. And bare legs and toes, too.

So, this is the 2nd swap where we had to visually represent a strange cliche (or idiom). Can you guess what they are?

Ah, the 70's. Time of unrest and strange and wonderful music. Saturday Night Fever, Star Wars, Watergate, Roe v Wade, Viet Nam, gas rationing, streaking...what a decade!