This is a perfect gift for any occasion, however, it makes a notably sweet Valentines Day gift for that special person in your life.
What You'll Need:
1 Deck of playing cards
A business card template
Font of your choice
Color printer
Scissors
Ribbon
Crochet Hook
I first found the idea for this project
here. I did a few things differently, mainly because they saved me time, money, and resources.
Before you gather your supplies you'll need to make a list of 52 things you love about the person receiving this heart felt gift. They don't all need to be serious! In fact some of my favorite reasons were the silly ones.
Now that you have your list gather all the materials necessary. You should be able to complete this project from start to finish in a couple of hours. However, if you're like me and have a bunch of kids hanging around all time, it might take a few days. But seriously it's insanely simple!
Find a template online that matches your printable business cards. I used Avery business cards because I knew it would be easy to find the matching template. Once it's downloaded open up the template in your document program (I use Open Office) and choose a font or two. If you don't like the font choices in your program you can easily find a free font on
www.dafont.com and add it to the fonts in your program. Now type all 52 reasons into the business card template. Don't forget to number them! I ended up using two different fonts, one for the numbers and one for the text.
Next, you'll want to jump over to
www.picmonkey.com and create some simple graphics with text. One for the cover page and one for the last page of your book.
Print those cards! Depending on what kind of playing cards your using you may need to trim a little here and there to make the business card fit how you want. I used a paper trimmer for this but scissors work just as well.
Use your adhesive dots to attach each business card to a playing card. I used 2 dots per card. One on a top corner and one on the bottom opposite corner. This helped me use less dots, save money, and time by not having to apply 4 dots for every corner.
For the cover page I placed the business card on the front of the playing card. For each numbered reason and the last page I placed the business card on the number side of the playing card. I used the two joker cards for my cover page and last page.
Now the fun part (at least for me), laminating! This was a little tricky to figure out but in the end I only needed to redo two cards. I found it helpful to feed the sheet of cards into the laminator using something hard and flat like a large picture book. This way the cards aren't shifting in the laminating sheet before it gets heated. You'll also want to leave plenty of space between each card inside the sheet to insure that each card is sealed around the edges. It might also help to run each sheet through the laminator a few times.
I chose to laminate my cards because I wanted them last and with three young children running around they needed protection from spills and other messes. This isn't necessary to complete the project but it does give it a permanent and professional finish.
Once all your cards are laminated simply cut around the edges to free them from the laminating sheet. Grab your hole punch and make two holes in each playing card (make sure you are punching on the same side of each card!). I eye balled it but you could be more precise by marking where you want your holes first using a ruler and then hole punch.
This next step again is not required. If you can't crochet that's ok! You can use the ribbon without crocheting or you can use binder rings, zip ties, the possibilities are endless.
I used a 3.5mm hook to crochet two 2 inch chains, leaving a long tail at the beginning and end of each chain. Now take your finished ribbon chains and thread them through the holes in your book. I finished each binding chain using the long tails to tie a square knot and then a bow.
That's it, your done! Easy right?
Now wrap it up and give it to someone special this Valentines Day!
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