Artist Trading Card (ATC) Swaps

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You might remember me writing about a Christmas Card Making in July event I went to that was a whole bucket load of fun. Well following on from that, Marla invited me over to a regular Tuesday night craft session that she and a few friends hold each week.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I tend to be a solitary scrapper as I don’t have any like minded friends nearby. My sister does card making but she doesn’t live so handily as to catch up for regular card making sessions. So you can imagine how pleased I was to be included in this group.

So now Tuesday night is a craft catch up night and I really look forward to it. There’s usually yummy treats and lots of chat.

I’ve just bought myself a little mini notebook computer so I can also do some digital stuff whilst I’m there.

So as the Newbie to the group, I brought along some of the stuff I had done. The others are stamping card makers and fabric crafters but not scrapbookers. Anyway one of the things I brought along was my ATC (Artist Trading Card) album. Marla was intrigued. And in next to no time she became a total addict and had joined several on line ATC Swapping Groups.

She’s pulled me along in her wake and I’ve started making ATCs for some of the swaps myself. Mind you, Marla has gone from 0-60 in an instant. She’s completely by-passed the learning stage and jumped straight to advanced. Her ATCs are absolutely gorgeous (check some of them out here). So the pressure is on!

One of the swaps I joined was for the theme of Orange and the second was a Mystery Image swap where the image was mailed out by the coordinator and you had to design your ATCs using it.

Because you need to make a run of the same ATC for each swap (a limited edition run) I like to use digital techniques as the basis for my design. That way it’s easy to repeat the design. I like to print out some of the design elements separately and cut them out, mounting them on the card using foam tape to add some extra dimension.

And of course there’s usually a brad or two somewhere in there.

I enjoyed making the cards for the ATC swaps but I can’t see myself becoming as involved as Marla. One of the attractions of ATCs for me is that I can make individual projects on a whim when the fancy takes me. And I don’t need to make several of the same thing. I don’t mind doing the occasional limited edition but I don’t want it to become the norm.

But it’s definitely a fun thing to do whilst in the company of like minded friends.

PS. Only two more sleeps before Purple and I are on the big silver bird to Budapest. Oohh I’m starting to get excited.