card sharks!!!

awesome challenge at shopping our stash this week, we want to see projects involving playing cards, whether it be ACTUAL cards, or stamps, stickers or patterned paper with playing card images. lots of ways to go with this. my project is a bit of a wild card... how laureny is that, lol?

if you've been reading my blog for a bit, you know that i love to knit and crochet, and i especially love making little amigurumi dolls: i've made dogs, dinosaurs, sharks, various types of food, dave the minion (with a minion cupcake) and even a few tiny grim reapers! i've probably made three dozen or so of these little guys over the years, and since i always give them away as gifts, the only one i actually own is the one in the photo above, the very first i ever made, in a class with my bff at lion brand yarn studio in 2009! this guy sits next to my sewing machine and performs valuable services as both mascot and pincushion! a few years ago i made myself a little playing-card minibook with photos of each of the amigurumis i had made. partly as a fond way of remembering them, but it also serves a practical function, since i use the back of each card to record details of the pattern and yarn, as well as who "adopted" each creature. but somehow i'd gotten way behind in updating my book, so i thought this would be a great time to catch up.

this minibook really is built upon an actual deck of elderly and incomplete playing cards. i often make atcs with a playing card base, for the structure. for my ami book, i format and print the pictures just a tiny bit larger than necessary, so that the image will cover the entire face of the card. on plain paper i print out a little "adoption form" i made in wordpad... it has spaces to write the name, date, pattern and recipient of each amigurumi. i run the entire sheet of both the photos and the adoption forms through my xyron machine, adhere them to the front and back of the playing cards, respectively, and then trim them up with scissors.

when each card is complete, i ink the edges with black archival, punch holes with my cropodile, and add a little caption with my dymo label maker. then i add the cards to the book, which is bound only with a bookring, so that it's easy to keep adding more cards, any time i want to!

is it just me, or does my not-so-feathered friend look a bit nostalgic when faced with a photo of his newborn self??! :)

there's loads more inspiration from our card-carrying SOS design team members! check it out and start planning what you will make! ♥