Sunday, June 24, 2007

ATCs for Greeting Cards

I have been thinking of an idea. Then a friend from my ATC trading world emailed me saying she did a very similar idea. The base premise is the same, use an ATC as the front of a greeting card.

My idea was to take some of the store-bought blank greeting cards that come pre-folded with envelopes and to put an ATC on the front as the decoration. I was thinking about ways to attach it that would allow the recipient to realize what they had was also an ATC and to have it removable.

My first idea was to use clear fishing line to sew the card onto the front of the card. I imagined sewing in the four corners, enough to keep it attached. The clear color would not obstruct from the design of the ATC. This would be cut off so the ATC could be kept, if one wanted. I thought of putting some note on the back of the greeting card to say the front is an ATC and to explain what an ATC is. I figured since I was giving this away this would not get me into any trouble with the ethics of ATCs which don’t allow for selling of the ATCs. I planned to do this with ATCs made by other artists, which I own due to the fact that I swap ATCs with other people. I have a bunch here that are high quality but just not my taste. The ones that are for holidays would be just perfect for this use.

My second idea is to glue a clear plastic pocket sleeve onto the front of the card, then slip the ATC inside it.

Coincidentally my friend emailed me with a similar concept. She didn’t know what I was thinking but said that she had been adhering ATCs to the front of greeting cards with glue. The recipient did not know that the design was an ATC. I think it is funny that we were both thinking of similar ideas and that she had already been doing it. She said the recipient of a box of cards said she absolutely loved them. What she did was make a box of greeting cards to be used as thank you notes and gave them as a gift for a baby shower gift. She said the guests loved them also.

Tonight I plan to give the fishing line idea a try.

Update: The sewing idea didn't work. I went to plan B with the plastic sleeves and it worked. I made over 40 of them last night and today. They look fantastic, actually, better than when they are in a 9 sleeve card folder inside a binder.

Two comments came in today about making slits in the paper and tucking the ATCs into the corners. Thanks for sharing that idea also. I will try that too.

2 comments:

Aiyana said...

I've been using ATC's as part of greeting cards for a couple of years now. What I normally do is cut two diagonal slits the size of the ATC at the top left and bottom right--just enough so that the ATC is held in. Easy to remove and it becomes part of the card, which I may or may not embellish further. I have also used your idea of the plastic sleeve attached. People love them, and it has spurred several folks to become interested in ATCs.

Unknown said...

Another way you could possibly adhere it to the front is to simply cut (with a craft knife) four slits into the front of the card at angles (slightly in from where the corners of the ATC would be) and slip the corners of the ATC into these slits. I used to work at a workshop with disables adults and they would create art on large sheets of paper that we would cut down and adhere to cards in this manner for them to sell. It was a lot of fun and fairly easy. We even had a template made out of cardboard that had angled corners to make it easier and faster to cut the slits.