Tips & Tricks

Free ephemera

Cool stuff at garage sales

The slick card surface

Free ephemera

You know all those bill envelopes that you throw away? Well, tear one of those open and look at the great pattern on the inside of the envelope. And they come in all colors, too! These make great background papers – and they’re free!

Save the insulation sleeve you get when you order coffee to go. The reverse side of these usually has a great corrugated texture.

Old greeting cards have great images and words you can cut out and use.

Tear off the canceled postage from envelopes you receive. Save these in an envelope. After a few weeks, pull them out and begin to group them in different ways: by topic, by color, etc. and see what interesting patterns you come up with. These make great backgrounds or filler images and they are the perfect size for a playing card.

Take a walk around the yard! Leaves, twigs and pressed flowers are beautiful inspirations from nature and they are there for the pickin'.

Hang on to those Chinese fortunes. When you're looking for an idea or an expression for your card art, look through your fortunes.


You never throw away wrapping paper. You've got all kinds laying around from showers, birthdays and weddings. You can use them for background papers or cut out any images to use in collage.

Keep those travel brochures and maps the next time you go on vacation. You can use the photographic images in collage and maps make great background papers.


Cool Stuff at Garage Sales (top)

You can get great, unusual art items at garage sales for mere change. Look for some of these items the next time you make a spontaneous garage sale stop:

incomplete games or puzzles
old books, magazines, or comic books
charms, old jewelry, buttons and beads
broken watches
greeting cards
keys
photographs, maps and letters


Those Slick Cards (top)

Some people have experienced a great deal of frustration in writing on or gluing to the slick surface of the playing cards. The purpose of the varnished surface of playing cards is to prevent you from doing exactly what you’re trying to do – permanently mark the card. So any water based mediums are not going to work on the surface of the cards. You also will not have any success with other wax based mediums like colored pencils. Here are a few suggestions in working with the playing card surface.

A glue stick works perfectly for gluing almost any paper to the surface of the card but if you still have trouble with something sticking you might try roughing up the surface of the card or, in effect, removing some of the slick varnish. You can do this in several ways:
1. sand paper or emery board
3. score it with an x-acto knife
4. paint the card with gesso

Sand paper or emery board - Take fine grade sand paper or an emery board and sand the surface of the card in one direction. Turn the card 90° to sand it in the opposite direction. Only lightly sand the surface of the card if you are planning on writing, drawing or painting directly on the card. You may also want to add a couple of coats of gesso. If you are not going to write on the surface of the card but simply glue to it, you may sand the surface a little more but it probably isn’t necessary. Sand paper can be purchased at any hardware store and even sometimes at the grocery store. Emery boards can be purchased in the beauty section of a drug store, grocery or at a beauty supply store.

Gesso – This is a chalky liquid used as a primer for canvases and other art surfaces. It leaves the surface with a matte finish. Brush the gesso on in one direction on the card surface. Let it dry – it only takes a few minutes. Turn the card 90° and paint on a second coat in the opposite direction. Two coats should be sufficient. Gesso is fairly inexpensive and can be purchased at an art supply or arts & craft store in the paint section.

Score with an X-acto – This has the same effect as the sand paper. Simply run the knife lightly across the surface of the card in one direction. Turn the card 90° and lightly score in the opposite direction. You do not want to cut through to the paper surface too deeply or the card may begin peeling apart. This is probably most effective if you want to glue things too the card and less effective at creating a friendly writing surface on the card. X-acto knives are very handy craft tools to have. You can purchase them at hardware stores, art supply stores or any arts & crafts supply store.

You can write on the cards with Sharpies or paint pens because they are not water based. Sharpie’s now come in amazing colors. Arts & crafts stores like A.C. Moore even sell the pens individually.

If all else fails, just use another paper surface. You can also color copy the cards onto cardstock.

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