interpretations of Alice

a couple weeks ago I posted about swap-bot and since then have found myself involved in a couple of the featured swaps. I enjoyed receiving treats from England in a candy swap and a homemade recipe book in a surprise swap. This week I sent off my first attempt at ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) in an Alice In Wonderland-themed swap.

I took a "less is more" approach to my cards and took inspiration from the scene where the Queen of Hearts plays croquet using flamingoes as mallets. Since I needed to send a card to two different recipients, I cut a playing card in half and used one half on each card. Then, using elsie's embroidery pattern as a reference, I cut out the flamingo body from construction paper and glued it on. The eye and beak are drawn with ink pen, but the legs are stitched with grey embroidery floss and the wings and feather detail are stitched with pink floss.
The back of the card is just paper (mostly to cover the back of the embroidery) the color of Alice's blue dress with swirls on it that make me think of the crazy helter-skelter-ness of Alice's adventures in Wonderland.
I also received cards from two different swappers - those are pictured here (one artist sent an extra card just for fun!):

Making an ATC was fun, but I don't know if I would do it again. I've heard that many people collect ATCs like baseball cards, but I'm not interested in that. I mostly decided to do this swap because of the Alice in Wonderland theme. I have an idea for what I'll do with my received Alice ATCs, but for now I'm keeping it a secret :)