Introduction: How to Make a Custom Set of Playing Cards - Approach 1

By

There are many ways to make custom playing cards, here is my first approach, and following instructables like How to make a custom set of playing cards - Approach 2 , I will show some other approaches. I believe this is the best I have tried so far.

Why create a custom set of playing cards? Not because you want "vanity cards", there are web sites that will do that for you (another instructable) but because you want a set of cards you can not get, like for a game you are designing or a commercial game that is out of print.

The example I am using in this instructable are cards from the game I am designing called "I, Detective".

Step 1: Gather Your Supplies

The instructable relies or three(3) key supplies:
1) Your cards
2) Playing cards
3) Cards Sleeves (also known as deck protectors)

I suggest you buy the Cards at the Dollar Store ($1 for two decks at my local Dollar Tree), and buy the card sleeves wherever you can get them cheapest. I have found them online, at big box stores (Target, WalMart, Toys R Us) and game stores for under $5 and sometimes under $2. Typically these come 50 in a pack, so if your deck needs more than 50 cards, buy multiple packs.

Making the cards is the next step, but you should know in your head how many cards will be in your deck.

Step 2: Build Your Cards

For this step you will need a Windows PC with a printer. You will also need the nanDECK software which can be found at: http://www.nand.it/nandeck/. With this software you can design you cards to be printed on regular computer paper. nanDeck also does a great job of automating the creation of cards by allowing you to repeat design elements (like the title and color band in the example) across multiple cards. Additionally you can drive the creation of cards from data files to make the managing large number of unique cards (think Magic cards) easy.

Once you create your deck in nanDeck you can generate it as a PDF (for easy reuse or sharing) and print it as well. I suggest sizing the cards so that you fit nine (9) on a page. This makes cards a little smaller than playing cards, but this is fine as you will see in the next step.

Step 3: Generate and Print Your Cards

Once you create your deck in nanDeck you can generate it as a PDF (for easy reuse or sharing) and print it as well. I suggest sizing the cards so that you fit nine (9) on a page. This makes cards a little smaller than playing cards, but this is fine as you will see in the next step.

Step 4: Assemble the Deck

Cut apart the cards you generated with nanDECK. In each sleeve place a playing card (I prefer the back to show so that it is less distracting) with the cut out card you made on top. I have found that adding the playing card makes the deck easier to manipulate and shuffle. With just the paper card in the sleeve, the deck does not shuffle well (too mushy).

All done! Have fun with your new deck. Also (as I am sure you figured out) you can easily redo the deck at any time. This is VERY helpful when prototyping a new game.