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What Is an ACEO?
(Art Cards Editions and Originals): A Two Year Old Art Movement Started on Ebay
By Rebecca Fairbanks
Published November 1, 2006
What is an ACEO? ACEO stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals. It is an art format started by an artist on Ebay two years ago. This artist is known by “bone*diva” on Ebay, but her real name is Lisa Luree.ACEOs are collectible little pieces of art. An ACEO is always two and one-half inches by three and one-half inches. That is the size of a standard sports trading card. The rule about size is the ONLY rule in the ACEO world. An ACEO can be created in any medium the artist desires: paint, colored pencils, ink, etc. There are even ACEOs made from wood, clay, fabric, and metal. ACEOs are tiny art works that can be matted and framed to hang on the wall. Many people display their ACEO collections in the same kind of plastic sheets and albums that sports card collectors use. You might slip an ACEO into a greeting card as an extra surprise for a birthday, anniversary, or Christmas. ACEOs sell on Ebay for anywhere from ninety-nine cents to over one hundred dollars or more!Lisa started the ACEO movement in response to the prohibition against selling that was associated with typical Artist Trading Cards. (Artist Trading Cards are the same size as ACEOs. They have been around for a long time, and were a way for artists to show their work. Regular Artist Trading Cards are always traded, never sold.) Lisa, whose own art work is very creative, wanted a way to get her art into the hands of her Ebay customers. ACEOs were her solution.If you go to Ebay and search “ACEO”, you’ll find approximately 5,000 ACEOs listed for sale at any time. I stumbled across ACEOs last year when I was selling on Ebay, and instantly became “addicted” to creating them myself.Creating ACEOs is a very relaxing and inexpensive hobby to pursue. I usually make mixed media collage ACEOs, and have sold quite a few on Ebay. Anyone with an art hobby will most likely have on hand all the materials they’d need to start creating ACEOs.
To begin, all you need is a stiff base, such as Bristol Board, or even a playing card from an ordinary deck of cards. You can draw, paint, or cut and paste to your heart’s content. Even my grandchildren enjoy making ACEOs with me when they come to visit. Even though the ACEO movement is still fairly new, today more and more people are learning about them, and they are being offered for sale on more and more websites, as well as in some real-world galleries.If you are looking for a fun new hobby, try your hand at creating ACEOs. You will find they are like potato chips—you can’t stop at just one.


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What Is An ATC?
The very basics
As their name indicates, ATC are collectables, a brilliant idea born of the older sports-themed trading cards. The one rule that makes an ATC derives from their origins: the dimensions of the ATC must be 2.5"x3.5", or 64x89mm.
To this rule are appended a couple of conventions. First, an ATC mustn't be sold, only exchanged, as the whole essence of these tiny works of art is about artists meeting (by correspondence or online if need be) and exchanging their works, thus meeting many artists and getting exposed to many personal styles. Second, on the back of each ATC the artist writes part or all of the following information: name, contact information, title of the ATC and number (1/8, 2/8...) if it's part of an edition. By definition ATCs are made in limited numbers, often no more than one of a kind. Unique ATCs are called originals; sets of identical ATCs are called editions and are numbered; sets of ATCs that are based on one theme but that are different are called series. Don't be intimidated by the concept of small editions or originals: very few people are anal about this. What most collectors really want are cards that were made with care. Based on that, numbers are meaningless.
That's all! The above is all you need to know to start making your own ATCs. Common sense dictates that they should be sturdy enough to survive mailing, and of reasonable thickness (unless you specifically want them otherwise. Transparent card sleeves are useful to protect the cards if need be. This is particularly true if they can easily get smudged or if the medium might stick during transport.

I hope this helped some of you that are not ATC or ACEO artists...or not very artsy at all (and that's ok with me, too!).
You can view my ATC collection by [clicking here].