Make your own customized playing cards

Over the years I have been seeking the process of how to make your own playing cards. I found this great article that explains how. I hope this helps anyone out there that has been wanting to learn this as well.  GOOD LUCK! 

Article by: Barry Stump 

http://weevilgenius.net/2010/04/making-your-own-playing-cards/ 

Keep the IMAGINATION juices flowing.

 

Card Dimensions

Standard poker sized playing cards (as well as Magic the Gathering cards) are 2.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall. Bridge sized playing cards are 2.25 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall (which may or may not be the same dimensions as Yu-Gi-Oh cards). Cards usually have rounded corners with 1/8 inch radius. You can fit 8 poker sized cards on a single US letter size piece of paper.

Paper

A quick note on paper widths and weights. The pound measurement of a paper is the number of pounds a single ream (500 sheets) weighs, in the normal size for that type of paper. So 110 lb bond (plain) paper is different than 110 lb index stock because their normal sizes are different. Points is a measurement of the thickness of a single sheet in thousandths of an inch (sometimes called mils). The metric measurement for the weight of a paper is GSM (grams per square meter) and is independent of the type of paper. Lots of further info here.
Casino quality poker cards (and some board game cards) use a special playing card stock comprised of 2 or more layers of paper glued together with a blue or black glue, often containing graphite. For this reason it is sometimes called “black liner board”, and it is opaque (print on one side of the card cannot be seen from the other side). The usual weight is 300 GSM and it has more springiness than ordinary paper card stock. Apparently, most playing card stock comes from France and Germany. It is usually sold by the ton and difficult to find in small quantities.
A less expensive alternative some times used for board games is 14 point C2S (coated 2 sides) cover stock. You may or may not be able to see through this depending on artwork and lighting. This does not have quite the same feel as playing card stock, but cards made from cover stock are often put in sleeves (at least for collectible card games) and should be easy to shuffle either way. Pre-coated papers may not work well with home printers. Ideally, you want the coating applied after the printing to protect the ink.
For printing at home, card stock from office supply usually comes in medium (65 lb) and heavy (110 lb) weights, and works reasonably well if you adjust your printer settings properly. On my laser printer, I have to select “heavy” or “card stock” paper settings to get good quality output. I believe that the fuser does not run hot enough to get the toner to stick properly to thick paper when using the default settings. Cards made with card stock alone can usually be seen through when held up to a bright light (even 110 lb) and feel less sturdy and less springy than real playing cards. However, they are easy and cheap to make, and work great for prototyping.
Normal weight paper (plain or photo) can be used as well. In this case, the print is either glued to some more sturdy card stock (or a real playing card), or inserted into a card sleeve along with a real playing card for backing.
An alternative to gluing is to print the card faces on sticky label paper (such as made by Avery). It is then a simple matter to stick the labels onto cards or card stock. This usually results in a card that is more opaque than printing on card stock alone (especially if the backing material is a poker or MtG card).
plaincards.com has 8.5″x11″ micro-perforated card stock available with pre-printed (or blank) backs. They also offer aerosol spray for making a glossy coating as well as software (Windows only) for designing card fronts. I do not know how their paper compares with professional playing cards.

Printing

Large runs of playing cards are usually printed with traditional offset presses in 4 colors (CMYK) on large sheets. Smaller outfits and POD (print on demand) companies often use digital printing techniques. For DIY printing, a decent ink jet or laser printer is sufficient. You can also have Kinko’s do prints for you at a higher cost per page. Some people have reported that for very small runs, you can get good results by having your cards printed up as digital photographs (usually 2 cards per “photo”) at Costco, Wallmart, etc for pennies per card. This technique will usually produce very glossy cards which may or may not be desirable.

Surface Coating

In addition to protecting the cards from dirt and moisture, the surface coating (or varnish) of a card determines its slipperiness and shuffle ability. Professionally made poker playing cards have plastic-like varnishes which are typically proprietary to the company manufacturing the cards. Other options for professionally printed cards include aqueous and UV varnishes (sometimes called a “press coat”).
Coating options for DIY card printing basically fall into two groups: spray coating and laminating.
Protective sprays come in a variety of brands and range from matte to glossy. Many smell strongly for a while and all should be used in a well ventilated area. It is always better to spray lightly and use multiple coats than to use a single heavy coat. If you are using an ink based printer for your cards, be sure the ink is thoroughly dry before applying the spray to minimize bleeding or running ink. Laser printers will not have this problem as the toner is heat-fused to the page. One commonly used spray coating is clear acrylic, which is basically spray paint without any pigment. I have also heard that certain wood varnishes (such as “Deft Gloss Clear Wood Finish”) work well.
Laminating is the process of applying a thin transparent plastic coating to the cards (usually both sides). Laminates fall into two categories, hot and cold. Hot laminates work by melting (100 to 300 degrees F) an adhesive which sticks the plastic to the paper or card stock. You should check that heat will not effect the ink or card stock that you are using if you intend to use hot lamination. Supposedly, hot lamination sticks better and peels less than cold lamination. Cold laminates work through pressure and don’t require heat (or even electricity). Some people don’t like the plastic feel or extra thickness that lamination adds to each card, though different thicknesses are available. Lamination usually makes cards quite dirt and water resistant. It would seem that you do not need to have the laminate overlap the cards, though I have no personal experience with this.

Cutting and Corner Rounding

Sheets of professionally made cards are usually cut into strips (all cuts in parallel) and the strips cut again into individual cards with a big cutting machine, which also rounds (cuts) the corners of each card in a uniform manner. Similar results with square corners might be achieved through the use of a business card slitter machine video
Alternatively, cards are sometimes cut out of the sheet all at once (rounded corners and all) with a die press. Small scale die cutters (usually only big enough to cut 2 cards at a time) are available for crafters. One company producing such die cutters is Ellison, who will also make custom dies to fit their machines. Larger die cutting machines are called clickers or presses and can be used for all kinds of material in addition to paper (such as cardboard and leather). Union Brothers Co. manufactures machines for stamping out from 1 to 8 rounded corner wallet photos in dimensions similar to playing cards such as this. These are sometimes available on eBay (though not cheap).
Cutting out cards by hand is the least expensive (though most laborious) option. Possible tools include a swing arm “guillotine” paper cutter, a rotary cutter, a sharp knife and straight edge, or plain old scissors. It is important for shuffling purposes that all cards be exactly the same size, unless you are going to use card sleeves. A jig can help with this. Rounded corners tend to extend the life of the cards and can be accomplished with a corner rounder (made for crafters) or with small nail clippers.