Artist Trading Cards

ATC is short for Artist Trading Cards. ATC’s are an artistic answer to sports trading cards. To qualify as an Artist Trading Card the piece of art must be 2.5”x3.5”, or 64x89mm in size and must never be sold, only traded.

The small size makes these cards ideal for a busy crafter who only has time in the day to do 30 minutes of crafting. It is also a great thing to do if you are not feeling particularly inspired, by making something small can get the creative juices going again.

There are an unlimited number of mediums artist’s use in the creation of these miniature collages: paper, cardstock, cardboard, paint, scrapbook papers, rubber stamps, altered photos, junk mail, images torn from books and magazines, fabric, fibers… the list goes on. As long as the piece is no bigger than the dimensions of a play card then it is fair game!

Tip: It is a good idea when working on other craft projects to save all the little pieces of scrap paper and odd shaped left over bits to use in the creation of your Artist Trading Cards collage.

What to do with your ATC?

These art pieces can be used in a variety of ways: They can be attached to cards or larger collages as focal images, they can become backgrounds for smaller art pieces, used as business cards, kept as an portable ideas file used to spark creativity for other projects. ATC

ATC card

See here how this ATC (left) ended up as the focal image in this card (right)?

But, one of the main uses of ATCs is to trade them with other artists!

To do trades you will need to be in contact with other artists that trade cards. So look out for opportunities to meet other artists either in real life or online that you can trade with.

Carry the ATC’s like a business card, especially if you are going to a craft show or class so that you are ready to trade.

Consider organizing a swap in your area or online. There are on-line groups host swaps, with themes and guidelines. Scan the net for them. If you trade you will get, for free, a little piece of someone else’s art and if you like it you can frame it!

To see how popular ATC’s are just look at this Flickr group!

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