The House Mouse mice never
cease to delight me. I especially like the single images, because they have so
many possibilities. The two used here are Contented Mudpie and Mice-tro, Monica
wielding the baton. The whimsical music notes are from the Mardi Gras Frogs
collection by Third Coast.
Techniques used: stamping, embossing with ep, watercoloring,
masking. For the “dream” clouds, I cut a shape from a sticky note and sponged
around it.
The little mice remind me of one of my favourite childhood
comic books, Mary Jane and Sniffles. Sniffles was a mouse, and to become his
size, Mary Jane would say, “Magic words of poof, poof piffles, make me just as
small as Sniffles,” She would shrink to Sniffles’ size and off they’d go on
adventures.
These stories and others fed my imagination, and with dolls,
small plastic horses, and stuffed animals, I created a world of adventures. The
Raggedy Ann and Andy stories, in which dolls and other toys come to life at night,
were another favourite. One night, I
placed some of my dolls next to my bed and whispered to them that I knew their
secret would never tell, and then begged them to wake me at midnight. Of
course, they never did, but I still believed, telling myself that they just
didn’t trust me enough. I’d hate to tell you how old I was when I stopped
believing in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.
As I grew older, these beliefs and fantasies were
undone by reality, but a sense of wonder and a penchant for weaving tales has
never left me. 
