Kids Artist Trading Card Swap
Hello! It's good to be back. Thanks for all your well wishes last week. The electricity is humming along and the house is warm. We were well taken care of, though. A big thanks to our good friends!
Sometime after the holidays, I stumbled upon Blair's post about Emma's artist trading cards. I was immediately enamored with Emma's work and knew that my girls would love to create miniature works of art, as well. I asked Blair if she would be interested in hosting a swap just for kids and she said yes!
So now, you might be wondering exactly what constitutes an artist trading card. No worries! Click on this link, to find out more specifics about these small works of art. The artist trading card pool on flickr might also be a great source of inspiration for your budding young artist. I found that once I gave my kids the small papers and we pulled out the watercolors and pastels, they didn't need any direction from me. They just got busy creating! It was so fun to watch how differently they approached it - Jane immediately thought of the art she has studied in school and did her own interpretation of it whereas Kate looked around the room and drew what she saw and later pulled out the Ed Emberley books and started painting again.
My girls were really excited at the idea that they could send their drawings and paintings to other children and then would receive some in return. I think the idea of mail, addressed to them, certainly added to their excitement. So Blair and I have put our heads together and have created a swap, just for kids, to share artist trading cards with one another. Each child will be part of a small group and will create mini masterpieces (2.5" by 3.5" small!) of their own to send to similarly aged children all over the United States, and hopefully, around the world. If your child would like to participate, here are the guidelines:
- Please send a message to atckidswap@gmail.com by this Friday, 2/6. Let us know your address, your child's name and age. International swappers are welcome!
-This is exclusively a project for children and for thatreason, we are specifying that participating children be ages 4 and up. No adult ATC's, please.
- We will divide the children into groups of 6, meaning your child will make 5 cards to mail out. You will receive your group from us on Monday, 2/9.
-Artist trading cards are all the same size: 2.5" by 3.5". Because ATC's are so small, they will fit into a standardenvelope. To keep it simple, the participants are not obligatedbeyond mailing the actual card out to its recipient (plus anyinformation about the card they'd like to add). Anything extra is up tothe sender and is not expected or required.
- Finished cards should be mailed out to their recipients no later than 2/28.
I hope you will join us. A big thanks to Blair, and to her sister-in-law Jenny, who inspired the whole thing. Jenny even created a kids atc button for us to use. Feel free to put it on your blog and link back to this post, or Blair's post, for details on the swap. I think it is going to be so much fun!
