Women's Accessories & Too Many Swaps

These ATCs are from a "Women's Accessories" 3/3 swap. I love vintage images and have been collecting old pictures, postcards and stereoscope cards off and on since I was a kid. Mine are all in a box somewhere however so I'm limited to whatever I can find on line until I find them. I knew I wanted to do the cards for this swap with vintage images, but they ended up being completely different than what I thought I was going to do. The shoe one is probably the closest to what I envisioned, but it's a little "prettier" than what I was going to do. I was originally thinking more along the lines of a Victorian "pin up girls" imagery - corsets and high button boots peeking out from under petticoats. I didn't like the images that came out of that experiment though. Well...*I* kind of liked them, but I didn't finish them because they looked a little too risque for what I imagine most of the people on this particular list would like. I want to finish them for myself though...after I finish all of the swaps I'm in for the next couple of months!

Speaking of too many swaps...I've noticed that my style changes when I sign up for a lot of swaps. My cards are less detailed and more dependent on available materials when I've got lots of swaps to do. I have less time to create the hand drawn and more time consuming cards that I usually do when I'm not doing so many swaps. I don't think that's good or bad. It does push me to be more picky with layout and use more embellishments than I might normally. Having a theme to work with also gives me a place to start when I'm not feeling particularly inspired. But at the same time I miss being able to take several days to create one or two very special cards because I'm so busy cranking out the cards that I need to meet the qualifications of the swaps. I also miss seeing more of "me" in the cards. Sometimes the cards I make for swaps are more of a reflection of the theme and not so much of me. Not always, mind you, just sometimes. I think perhaps a good solution to this dilemma would be to do a lot of swaps for a month or two and then take a break for a while to concentrate on doing blind trades and personal swaps (where I trade most of my more time consuming cards).