You can find many wonderful ideas online for using old, unwanted Magic The Gathering cards – here is my take on it, using my favourite up-cycling technique – decoupage.

MTG cards were/are always printed with interesting artwork illustrating characters, places, artifacts, magical effects and monsters – in keeping with the fantasy theme of the popular card game. I used to own a lot of these cards (back in the day…) and either sold or gave away most of them – but I kept one box of random cards that had no resale value.

If you wish to do an up-cycling project like this but don’t have any cards, then a job lot of old “common” (i.e. minimal resale value) cards can be had on eBay for very little money – if you shop around you get them for around 5 pence each. Of course you can use any gaming cards that have illustrations.

Possibilities really open up if you have, or can acquire one of these paper/card punches:

They come in various sizes and shapes – I found a 1&1/4 inch or 35 mm version very useful. Other shapes can be cut using either a guillotine or just a cutting mat and a hobby blade.

Preparation

After locating a suitable item to up-cycle ( an old box, a wooden tray) – my technique is:

• Clean it of any dust and grime
• Glue any bits that have come loose
• Fill any cracks with wood filler
• Repair or replace damaged hinges or fittings
• Sand down surfaces with sandpaper
• Paint with black acrylic paint ( 2 coats is usually sufficient)

Design

• Browse through your cards, and select some of them – either completely at random, or having some theme that appeals (color, type, artist, etc…).
• Figure out how to “tile” the object’s surfaces that are now your blank canvas for decoupage.
• Cut your cards using either a punch or other cutter – selecting the most interesting or aesthetically pleasing part of the image.

Decoupage

You can attach the tiles to the object surfaces using glue, or double-sided tape. When I tile a large area (like the box top in the image above), I like to turn the cards over and use double-sided tape overlapping on the backs of the tiles to fix them all together into a single panel before attaching the entire panel of tiles to the surface one go.

(Caution: If you stick card onto card using glue, you may get warping – double-sided tape is good for such situations. Sticking card onto wood is usually OK.)

Finishing

Finally, I like to finish the project by:

• Masking off any areas that wouldn’t take kindly to being varnished.
• Spraying all over with 2 coats of gloss acrylic varnish (for protection).
• Adding a sticky backed velour to interior surfaces if required.
• Using felt pads or velour underneath so it won’t scratch any table surface.

These two items I recently completed, and uploaded to my Etsy shop – thedigitaltinkerer.etsy.com