What's an ATC??

Eeeps! Sorry to Pondsong and any others who might not be clear what I am proposing here.
An ATC is a small, baseball card sized piece of art to trade. Like baseball cards only ... different. So: 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" big, you can paint or draw or collage endlessly. Google "artist trading cards" and you will get lots on the history and techniques for how to make them. The Swiss artist who thought this up back in 1997 had the idea that we would set up "swaps", times and places to trade them. I have gotten most of my information about ATC's on the internet, and there are many internet groups who trade with others internationally. But I don't live near any that I know, nor did I have friends who made ATC's, and I wanted to trade in person as well as on the internet. They seem soooo wonderful don't they? Little pieces of art to just bring beauty and wit and deep thought into the world. Eventually a series of events got me to ask my town librarian if we could swap at the library once a month and she said yes!
Anyway. Especially with collage methods, one can make large background papers, combining painting, and drawing, and all kinds of gluing down just about anything, to have a foundation, a starting place for some cards. We then cut this background paper inti 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" pieces and then make a tiny collage on just that small card. (You can then add words, dried flowers, photos, bits of ribbon, wood, metal, anything!)
Because I am going to be teaching this workshop at the library, (Rockport, Maine, Public Library), I am trying to make some cards to be a step or two ahead of all who come for inspiration, and to have some cards to swap when the time comes. I thought yesterday that it would be fun to have a bunch of us making a background paper at the same time. We are all bound to do it differently and we could learn from each other in that way.
Get it? So go get a brown paper bag and start your own background paper. I like the idea of a penny on the final ATC, and, and! How about this: put the penny, or any coin, under the paper and rub over the top with a crayon or colored pencil! Do lots of rubbings! Oh My! I gotta go try that! Thanks, P! Bye!