Welcome!

Hello everybody and welcome to our new ATC Dare Blog! Myself and a group of friends have started to dabble in the world of Artist Trading Cards. I thought it would be great to have a place for us New Zealanders (and anybody else for that matter) to meet, swap, be inspired and share ideas.

My name is Lisa and I the owner of a Scrapbooking & Papercrafting shop in Auckland called Scrapbook Studio (formerly Scrapbooking by Design). We sell several products suitable to use on ATC's and other mixed media projects. I love to create and also love working with mixed media, art products & fabric, whether its for sewing or adding to my papercraft projects.

We have recently started a ATC swap on our forum and I decided I had the perfect opportunity to start this site because we have the resources of our forum and gallery within our online website, we also have an online shoppe where we can also host ATC suitable products for purchase.

What is an Artist Trading Card you say? Well, an ATC (in short form) is a small collectible piece of original art, always traded but never sold! The act of creating and swapping ATC's is an exciting way to share your art and connect with other artists. A rule of thumb is that an ATC has to be a certain size which is 2.5" x 3.5" in size.

Usually you create your art on one side, maybe from a swap theme or your own theme. On the back you would normally sign your name, date, the name of the card and which number it is out of how many.

ATC's can be made up of all kinds of mixed media e.g paper, fabric, fibres, metal etc. They can feature the work of photographers, printmakers, watercolourists, collage artists, doodlers, metal crafters, cardmakers, scrapbookers and any mixed media enthusiasts.

These cards you can create and collect are a great source of artistic inspiration to keep and refer back to and admire not too mention very addictive and loads of fun. While entering the journey of ATC's you will find yourself trying new techniques and using products you never thought of using which will help inspire new ideas for other hobbies and projects.

So, lets get started! What is this site all about?

Well, on this site we will host a series of dares (i.e challenges) to motivate you to create some cards for either your own use or perhaps for you to trade. Each fornight we will set a dare, this may be based on a theme or a particular technique. Having guidelines will enable you to think outside the square and possibly force you to try something you never would have thought of. Joining in on the dares is of course optional and is purely for fun and motivation. However on most occasions we may have a small prize to send winners inside New Zealand.

What else can you expect from this site?

Not only will you gain inspiration and ideas from the ATC's that come out of the dares, but we will also have a small group of Contributing Artists for the site that will help inspire, motivate and offer ideas and information where possible. Each fornight when a new dare is posted, the contributing artists will post their interpretation of the dare.

We will also have links to other ATC inspiring sites, links to our forum ATC community and swaps, links to our Art Room and Online Shoppe plus tips and techniques offered where possible. Each month we have a ATC swap in our forum, its as simple as signing up in the forum and posting your name to join in. To join in on our newest swap #4 (still open) check out the info in our forum HERE

So! What are you waiting for? Go sign up now....... and don't forget to check back in, our 1st dare and details will be posted by Friday 8pm