:: Valentine Artist Trading Cards :: Yes, your Valentine Day Cards just got a size smaller. A craft that’s close to my heart: artist trading cards. They are so creatively satisfying, and perfect for Valentine Day Cards. This is the kind of craft that I actually do myself. I have tons of books on making art pages / artist cards and can show you lots of examples on what make an artist trading card work. Most importantly, they need to be artistic and soulful. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is something that can be said of today’s feature: Linda’s artist trading cards are soulful. And beautiful too. So, I’m showing you hers!
Before we get to the details of this wonderful feature, let me take a minute to introduce this week’s linky party. Thank you all for sharing your amazing contributions, week after week. 
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(Sorry: Linda is so modest, that her profile picture is rather small… But her artwork is all the greater. So read on…)
This week’s linky party winner is Linda Nelson from ‘At the Createaerie’-blog.
Valentine Artist Trading Cards
This Week’s Party Feature is of Mixed-Media Artist Trading Cards with Hearts for Valentines Day
By those who make them, artist trading cards called ‘ATC’. they are often made with mixed-media, although they can be painted, scrapbooked, drawn, or sewn as well. I was living in California about a decade ago when they became the rage amongst artists who were involved in mail art. It was kind of a counter-culture to the rising popularity of digital art, but also enriching digital art. In fact, at that time, I was taking digital art courses and we made some artist trading cards in class.
What is just so nice about making artist trading cards is that you can bring your project along wherever you go. It’s small. In fact, it’s tiny. What is the size of artist trading cards? Well, the same size as football trading cards: 2.5 by 3.5 inches. That’s about 6.5 by 9 cm.
Copyright Linda Nelson 2016
How to Make Valentine Artist Trading Cards
What I particularly love about Linda’s article is how she explains that artist trading cards can have many purposes besides being traded amongst artists. One of her novel ideas is to use them as portable mood boards for decorating projects. Linda’s work is excellent. I feel so inspired by it. And she is a girl after my own heart: she uses recycled and found materials rather than craft-store supplies. I like to mix them up, and love the artistic results you’ll get when you constrain yourself on your craft store jewels, and you go lavish on adding artist finds. It’s about balancing wild vs. polished.
(as an aside: I used to have bowls around the house for ‘stuff’. In there would be pretty found bits, beads, cut-out pretty pictures or nice colors, a ribbon, a box that I thought was cute. A button that fell off a jacket. etc. Perfect for little art projects like artist trading cards and other miniature art projects. Do YOU have bowls (boxes or mini piles?) around the house with inspirational titbits?)
My Favorite Card from Linda
Copyright Linda Nelson 2016
I am adding this lovely green heart image because to me it’s so LINDA! See, she does not ‘advertise’ it but Linda designs gardens (be sure to check out a few of her garden design posts) and so to me, this green represents her love of nature, purity and a freshness of spirit. Healthy. It’s my favorite of all the cards she is showing.
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Footnote
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