Why ATCs (Artist Trading Cards)

At the end of 2004 I started to look at ATCs more closely for trading locally at our annual stamp conventions and they looked nicer and easier and more controlled in size than pins so I took the bold step into creating on a small canvas as I have been a card person.
The good bits to ATCs is the storage for display in folders using the Ultra pro (boy does this company know why all of a sudden they are selling these like hotcakes!!!) 9 card per page plastic sleeves. They keep grubby, chocolate covered fingers off your artwork and they are portable and is great for posting in for swaps.
At first I couldn't get my head around such a small canvas, can you imagine a guy came up with this idea first, check out this website about the origins of ATCs, pretty interesting I say!!!
I jumped in the deep end after the local trade and played in some might huge swaps, my first ATC swap was a local one for 50, holy canoli, what was I thinking, but then again I'm not afraid and suprise myself sometimes. A year later I now have 700, blimey that means I have made that many as well. Well apart from RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness) atcs which I send out and never expect any back so I must be into my century of creating ATCs. Now I still make traditional card size cards and sometimes I take my ATC and dress it up and make a card size out of it...no I dont use an iron, press and pull or traction to do that!!

Here are some links to templates for ATCs and envelopes, the trouble with some atc templates are that they are in pdf format so you can't type up your details before printing to save on all the repetitive strain injury caused by this love, so I made my own in MS word.

Here's a cute envelope template by MIRKWOOD DESIGNS. He was also kind enough to make us a CUTTING TEMPLATE.

Now here's a kewl FUNKY FOLDER TEMPLATE that you could adapt to an ATC size, its printed at 50% and if you're computer savvy you can make it bigger, goodluck!!

Here is one that is a TEMPLATE done in pdf format, that means you just print it out for cutting purposes, you can't add any writing to it before printing.

This lady is smart and thinks like me, she made a TEMPLATE in Photoshop and left the layers in so you can write or add pictures to it, now you need Adobe Photoshop software and a bit of brains to use this one, find a tech savvy friend. The template is under the head of EXTRA THINGS TO KNOW OR DO, yeah I had a hard time finding it too but I read a lot of good things on the way down!!

So if you see any kewl templates out there for ATCs -->EMAIL ME and I will put a link in here.