Inspiration Deck Swap - part one

One of the best swaps I did last year was Jess Brogan's inspiration deck swap.

Each person took a deck of playing cards, decorated them and adding inspiring quotes and sent the deck to Jess.  She swapped all the cards and mailed me back a deck with 52 different cards, from 52 different artists, with 52 different inspiring quotes.  

This is the deck I received last year:

Don't you wish you had one of these?
Well, you can!

I was thrilled when Jess announced she'd be doing the swap again this year.

You can read all about this year's swap on her blog, In Search of Dessert.

Jess asked me if I'd make my deck early this year and give everyone a sneak peak at the process.

Here are  my finished cards for this year's swap.

You totally need to join this swap.  The deadline is November 15th - that's two whole months from now.  And before you go saying "Karen, you are out of your mind, I don't have the time, patience or resources to make 52 different pieces of art in the next two months!" follow along while I show you my quick and easy methods for making beautiful cards out of the most basic supplies and household items.  I'm going to post this in multiple parts since it's so photo heavy.

To begin:
Do you have stuff like this?
 
 
 Then you can make a deck.
In a single weekend. I kid you not.
Read on.

FIRST, I laid all my cards on freezer paper, covered them with regular old copy paper and lightly ironed them so they'd stay in place.

Then I grabbed a cheapo foam paint roller from the hardware store and rolled it through some gesso and primed all my cards in a few quick stokes.

I liberally squirted two colors of craft paint on the cards and went at them again with the foam roller to lay down some quick color.

Now I hang it on my clothesline to dry while I work on the next step.

Read on for part 2.