Once you get an approved account on ATCsJr.com, you'll find that trading your cards with someone else is a lot of fun! Here's the most common ways to trade on ATCsJr:
1a. 1 to 1 Trades (1:1 Trades). An Artist posts a card to their gallery and you like it a lot. You check the tags to see if it's available or not (should be listed when you click on the card to bring up the whole image). If it's available, you PM them and ask them to browse your gallery and, if they like your style(s), they request your card - or you may need to make a special one to get the card you wanted. If it's not available, you could ask them to make a second one just for you...
1b. 1:1 Trades. Using the 1:1 Trading & Challenges button, you post that you've got a card on a particular theme that you'd like to trade for a card on [pick your own theme]. For instance, I have a dragon egg that I'm looking to trade for a dragon based card. It's set aside, waiting for someone to take me up on my trading offer. (You can take a look at how I've done it here.)
2. Swaps. A person, approved by the moderator(s) or admin(s), steps forward and volunteers to run a Swap. They choose a Theme to post in the forums, becoming the Swap Host. Then others sign up for the swap on that theme. The swap may be a 1:1, 3:3, or 6:6 and it's generally got a date that everyone must have their cards to the Swap Host. Everyone who signs up creates their cards and sends their cards (and an envelope and enough postage to cover the postage back to themselves) to the Swap Host. The Swap Host gathers all the cards, then distributes them at random into the participant's envelopes and mails them all out. Each person gets back as many cards as they sent. It's also considered good form to send a Host Gift Card (an extra ATC on the same theme) as a thank you gift for the Host - because it's a LOT of work to host.
3. Pay-It-Forward (PIF). On the PIF forum, a player lists three themes on which they'd make a card. The next player accepts their card and lists three new themes on which they'd make a card and the cycle continues indefinitely.
4. Make-Me-Happy (MMH). On the MMH forum, a player lists three themes that they'd love to see in their mailbox. The next player tells them which theme they'll make a card for them and lists three themes that would make Player2 happy. This cycle continues indefinitely.
5. Challenges. This is not really a trading thing, but it can get a player to create something new for their gallery and get others to follow them. It's a way to populate the gallery and initiate an "Oh! I love that - wanna trade?" sort of response. :) A player posts (in the 1:1 Trading & Challenges section), perhaps singling out another player as I've done with Daphne, or it could be an ongoing group challenge like the Sketch-a-Day Challenges. When the players get their cards finished, they upload to the Challenges section. Once the challenge is complete, there may be an offer to trade or it may have just been an exercise in fun.
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There's a LOT going on here at ATCsJr. It's kind of tough to figure it out and you have to be a little curious and maybe a lot headstrong about getting the trades you want! You have to troll the galleries and see what's new out there and be fearless about asking for trades that you want.
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