Butterfly ATC

Design: Assissi Butterfly freebie from alitadesigns.com
Materials: brown 14-count perforated paper; miscellaneous floss in dark red, dark gold and muted green; floral decorative paper; card

Having recently stitched a winter-themed artist trading card for an exchange at crossstitchforum.com I’ve well and truly got the ATC bug! As I was already sending a small package of cross stitch charts from various magazines to a friend, I thought I’d stitch her a little butterfly ATC as she’s crazy about butterflies.

The original design is Assissi-style, meaning that the butterfly is left unstitched with only the details added in, but as I was using perforated paper, I stitched it entirely. I also stitched the border design, but left out the extra stitches around the edges as I had decided to try a little experiment. I cut around the butterfly and the frame seperately very close to the stitching so that my stitched piece was now in two pieces. I then covered a thin piece of card in a decorative floral paper and arranged the frame and butterfly on it, gluing them into place. Finally, I backed the whole ATC with another thin piece of card and wrote my details on it.

I’m rather proud of this little ATC and I hope my friend will like it too.