ATCs originated in the US about 8 -10 years ago, by artists wishing to exchange contact details but not use a normal boring business card. So these little cards evolved, combing all the usual details (name, phone, email, web address etc) and also showed a sample of the kind of artwork they produced. For this amount of information the usual business cards were too small, but baseball cards (ATCs were designed to the same measurements) were just big enough without being cumbersome.

This meant that cards could be stored in commercial & easily available baseball card holders. ATCs have now caught on in a big way, and are an independent art movement: easy to make, quick to finish, these can be drawn and watercoloured, rubber stamped, collaged, machine stitched, hand sewn, quilted…. the only limit is the imagination.

Collections can be kept in loose-leaf albums in sectioned plastic sheets (the ones made for baseball cards), in tins, cigar boxes, niches cut into altered books, little handmade albums or individual glassine or cellophane envelopes.

1. They MUST be 2½ inches x 3½ inches in size (the exact size of an American baseball card).

2. They must be original works of art, ie: not photocopies.

3. They can be given away, traded or swapped – but are NOT for sale!

ATCs can be made individually for one-on-one swaps, or in a numbered series (all on the same theme, but each a little different) or as an edition (all handmade, all as identical as possible – but numbered, eg: 1/10 – which would mean this card is the first one of a series of 10). You might decide you want to number all your cards - so No 627 would be the 627th ATC you have made, which is an easy way of keeping score of how prolific you are.

USA paper sizes are different from those in the UK - so those in the USA can cut 10 ATCs from one sheet of A4 card, and those in the UK can only cut 9!

Take a look at these links for inspiration:

PAPERARTSY                     ART-E-ZINE

Try these links for ATC templates:

MIRKWOOD DESIGNS       REDCASTLE Templates & Software

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