Artist Trading Cards – with Envelope

ATCs or Artist Trading Cards are little 2.5 x 3.5 inch “art cards” that you make and trade with other artists, or give as
gifts to your non-artist friends.  Some people make the cards 2.5 x 3.75 inches.  Either way – they are pretty small.

I have decided to give these little art projects a try because they are so tiny – how can you screw up something that is only 2.5 x. 3.5 inches?  Here is a photo of my first ATC.

I made this using a double sided, very stiff interfacing called Fast 2Fuse. I used a small zig zag stitch around the sides.  I cut out the shape of a bird from some sheet music from an old church hymnal.  I  wrapped the card with various ribbons I had.   I put some blue glitter on the bird and some gold glitter around the edges.  I printed “Joy to the World” on velum paper and stitched it on the bottom.

There are lots of examples on the web of ATCs.  You can make them out of fabric, paper or any other material you like.   You could make Christmas tree ornaments out of them.  You could make a banner out of them – although I like the look of upside down triangles instead of squares for banners.  This is a really cute example of a triangle banner.  You can use scrapbook eyelets to create holes in your ATCs or small triangles.

I also found a template for making an envelope for ATCs.  It would be fun to make one of these out of freezer paper (be sure to use glue that is transparent when it dries).

Here is the website with the template for the envelope for your ATC.

Here is the template in PDF form in case the website takes it down.