Poker Cards...

[my-red-red-lips.livejournal.com]

OK-so I think it's been a long LONG time since I posted any thing, but it came up in a comment that I just made poker cards for my boyfriend (and another set for his brother) for Christmas and I thought I'd post them here for you. I'm using a new picture server so hopefully they won't be too blurry or other wise annoying :) Here they are:

http://www.geocities.com/my_red_red_lips/cards.jpg


and here's how I did it (taken directly from my comment on them, sorry if you already read it)...

First off, I just used normal copy paper trimmed down to the right size...I used two pieces per card...The page I used to draw the actual cards on and the piece for the picture on the back of each card. Then I took it to work (a copy place) and made color copies of them. That evened out the colors a little but in a good way and I could fit all the front and backs on 12 pages per deck, so that wasn't so bad. I cut them all out and glued them together with a glue stick (just about anything else would have made little globby sections you could see when they were all done). I trimmed them again to make sure they were all uniform (mostly because I'm anal about such things but also because these were poker cards and I know Gavin would use little things like that to cheat). When that was all done, I just laminated them all up with 5 mil heated laminate paper (I'm pretty sure it was 5 mil as opposed to 3 and I know it wasn't 10) Anyway, it took me a lot longer than I had planned, but I also was making 2 sets AND I still have my originals to go from so I could make new ones really easily now :) They've used them a lot already and I'm confident that they'll hold up well...Just make sure you don't trim the finished laminated cards too close to the seal or they will peal there and look crappy-especially after a ton of shuffeling...I was so proud of myself I threatened them with death if they lost the decks :)

Oh, and since I'm always curious about how much every ones crafts end up costing I'll break down my costs for you...(althouh I get a discount, so I'll give you "normal" costs on this one)

12 color copies at $0.99 each= about $12.00
12 laminated sheets at $1.19 each= about $14.28

about $26.28 + tax for each deck...

Oh, and there's a bunch of ways to make the boxes to hold them too...I made custome boxes out of left over card board (also from work) drew all over them and they "laminated" them with packing tape...but they would have also fit perfectly in those plastic cases you buy push pins in-and those would have been super easy to decorate as well. I may do that next time...