100 Days of Making and Mailing ATCs: Celebrating Mailing & Exchanging ATCs

In a previous blog post, I reflected upon making 619 ATCs as part of my 100 Days of Making and Mailing Artist Trading Cards aka ATCs. In this post, I will celebrate the swapping 560 of those ATCs in exchange with other artists all around the world.

Thankfully there are only 2 rules for ATCs:

1. They should finish at 2.5" x 3.5"
2. They can never be sold, but rather exchanged and/or gifted

While there are only 2 rules, there were certainly lots of lessons and logistics learned along the way with this project...

Online Trading:

At first, I planned to do most of the trades via my daily Instagram to streamline the process. But I quickly realized that my ATC making was far outpacing the trading there, so I shared to my Facebook page, along with any available ATCs in my monthly newsletter. I almost always posted my available ATCs to both channels before sharing elsewhere so my followers were given first access to new sets of ATCs. I was delighted by the folks that reached out to exchange and even more pleased to see several folks inspired to make their first ATC which is a cherished part of my ATC collection!

One of the ATC artists that I greatly admire is Emily Houtz aka @enajylime_atc Shortly after starting my 100 Day Project, Emily announced that she was starting a public Facebook group for ATC exchanges which was perfect timing! I was one of the first to join her group and have enjoyed watching the group grow to 4200+ members! Around this time, I learned of another public ATC Facebook group that currently has more than 17K members. 

Through both of these online communities, I was able to post my available ATCs and exchange them with fellow ATC artists. There was a bit of a learning curve with both online groups, especially in terms of some of the terminology used in the posts as well as the whole trading process. After checking out several others' posts, introductory posts, and getting a sense of what information to include, I took a leap of faith and posted a small group of ATCs. This proved to be a smart tactic as I was not prepared for the pacing of the trade process! Within minutes of posting my ATCs, I started receiving direct messages initiating trades. After a few trades, I figured out a flow for coordinating trades, exchanging mailing info, updating your inventory/posts, and packaging the ATCs to go out in the mail. Some folks were quite proficient at sending photos of the addressed envelopes with ATCs as confirmation of our trade. Here are some other lessons learned from these online exchanges:  

• ATCs are your own form of currency. You get to decide whether to swap or not, how many, and which ATCs.  
• Likewise, others get to choose whether to swap with you. Yes, it can sting a bit to reach out to another artist only to be told that they are not interested in trading for your available artwork. With time, I've learned that some artists are specific in the mediums and/or themes they wish to add to their collection. Thankfully, the vast majority of folks I contacted appreciated my artistry and were more than happy to swap with me...some on multiple occasions!
• With time, I found it super helpful to set up an online album of my currently available ATCs within each group. It was easy to upload images of my new ATCs along with some brief info about the medium/inspiration, as well as remove once the ATCs were traded to keep the inventory up-to-date. Instead of creating lots of mosaics and/or attaching a ton of photos, I could simply direct interested members to my album to see all my ATCs available for trade. Of course, this still required some management to ensure an accurate inventory, especially when having an album in two different groups!

• While not required, I found most participants appreciated a little note to let them know their artwork arrived safely.

It was through these groups that I learned about other exchanges including a monthly Artist Play Card exchange, theme challenges, monthly theme trade groups, and so much more! ATC trading truly is a rabbit hole once you get started. 

Mailing:

More than 550 of my ATCs were mailed to artists all around the world inluding 41 out of 50 US States, 6 Canadian Provinces, and a total of 11 countries!

Thankfully I stocked up on envelopes that I stamped with my return address, photo corners, notecards, and USA Forever and Global stamps at the start of my project. But these all had to be restocked at some point during the scope of my project. Once the project was in full swing, ATCs were going out on a nearly daily basis! Plus I enjoyed including a curated collection of paper fodder from my studio, oftentimes related to my ATCs as well as adding a bit of stamping to each outgoing envelope.

Of course all of this outgoing mail involved a learning curve on how best to package and ship the ATCs and bonus ephemera! Whenever possible, I found it more cost-effective to trade multiple ATCs. Of course, then I had to make sure they were properly packaged with adequate postage to get to their destination. On at least one occasion, one of my envelopes was returned due to inadequate postage (one of which I had sent from the post office counter which baffled me) and on one occasion, I had to pay additional postage to receive one of the ATCs sent to me. One time a properly addressed ATC was returned as they were unable to find the right address. I checked again on the address, confirmed with the recipient before  repackaging and sending. One ATC took 5+ weeks to travel across the country to get to me. So I always appreciate it when folks messaged me to let me know that my ATCs arrived safely, and I likewise, I made sure to let folks know that their ATCs arrived safely and were enjoyed. 

Despite these shipping challenges, I am thankful that they were far and few in between. One South African artist posted her incredible ATCs but was unable to exchange due to a collapsed postal system. This certainly helped me to appreciate how lucky we are to have a fairly reliable postal service.

In Person Exchanges/Giving

One way to reduce the shipping costs was to meet in person. During my TQS taping, I brought a set of ATCs to give each of the TQS crew. I also met up with a couple of local ATC artists where we got to admire each other's ATCs, coordinate multiple exchanges, and share resources.

Happy Mail

Of course, all this making and mailing meant lots of happy mail received! Once the project was underway, there was happy mail almost on a daily basis. It was fairly common to find several envelopes containing ATCs with each mail delivery. One day I returned home to find 12 envelopes containing ATCs waiting for me! Of course, Sundays and USPS holidays were a bit sad so I tried to save a few envelopes to open on these days! 

What a joy to open all these packets and see the ATCs in person, which were always way better than the posted photos! I took my time to admire all the wonderful details and layers contained within each ATC. Oftentimes, artists included little notes and/or bonus ephemera which was just as fun as the ATCs themselves! I tried to document the contents of each envelope, post to IG with credit to the maker, and message the artist to let them know their ATCs arrived safely. 

All my ATCs were then organized and safely stored in 9 Pocket Page Protectors that fit a 3-Ring Binder. Now I can flip through my binder and admire everyone's artwork which you can see in this video.  

In addition to the ATCs, I was the lucky recipient of other swapped artwork including cards, decorated envelopes, and booklets/folios containing artwork. Here is a video of these larger artwork that I carefully tucked into the pockets of my ATC binder. And partway into the project, I started saving stamps. I just loved the assortment of stamp designs, especially from other countries. You can see many of them posted above as well as here in this video. I may incorporate some of them into future ATCs and/or collage them into a masterboard?

New Connections

In addition to the happy mail, this project connected me to lots of wonderful artists who I greatly admire. I enjoyed watching their artistry evolve with each set of ATCs and delighted to forge new friendships through repeat trades, share resources via offline conversations, and develop mutual fan clubs for each other's art.  

I hope this post inspires you to explore the world of ATCs making and trading. If you are looking to trade, please reach out via email or social media as I would love to trade ATCs with you!