Altered Trading Cards

In several of the magazines and blogs I've been reading lately, I keep seeing references to the letters ATC. Apparently, these letters stand for "altered trading cards", which are miniature works of art that people make and trade. They are about 3.5 by 2.5 inches in size, about the size of a playing card. People get together to trade the cards at regular gatherings or exchange them by mail.

At the Bizzy B store, they have a collection of these cards on display and they are the most amazing pieces of miniature art you can imagine. I took this photo of one that absolutely blew me away: it is a little purse or tote bag, with 4 or 5 little tiny maps inside that you can pull out and look at it. In the photo, you can see the one for Venice sitting in the pouch.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you the name of the person who made this because I don't know it but I was really impressed by their skill at putting this together. My understanding is that people make several cards of the same design to bring to the swap group but it's hard to imagine that this particular one is not one of a kind as it seems, at least to my inexperienced eye, to be totally unique!