The rabbit hole begins.
This page will be updated soon with links for equipment/materials.
Cutting Out Cards
Before we cover printing, we need to cover cutting.
» Scissors / Razor (~$0)
The cheapest option. You probably already have a hand-held cutting tool. It’s highly prone to user error and nearly impossible for you to accurately cut out cards. However, if you’re putting the cards in card sleeves, it shouldn’t matter too much. Just remember to take your time.
» Slicer & Corner Punch (~$50)
A quality slicer and corner punch can get you some pretty damn good cards, but you must take your time to do it right. It’ll take practice.
» Card Die (~$125)
Potentially the best option, but also labor intensive, still prone to user error, and you must order them from China with high shipping fees. The card die makes it impossible to see the alignment marks when punching the card out so you have to rely on not having bleed margins to see any error in your alignment. If you do it right, you’ll have perfectly punched out cards every time. However, if you’re off by a fraction of a millimeter, you’ll see the white of the paper beyond the border of the card and have to print and cut out a new card. The card die will give you the best cut quality out of all of the options though.
» CNC Cutter (~$250)
Bypass the issue of your silly human errors and automate the task with a machine. The community recommends Silhouette Cameo CNC cutters and we have lots of community made resources for them. The upsides to using a CNC cutter are obvious: the machine does everything for you with greater precision than you could every hope to achieve with hand tools. There are certainly downsides though. It’s more expensive, more complicated, and the cutters will leave a burr on the edge of unlaminated thick paper/cardstock. The solution to this is laminating. Laminating the paper before cutting out the cards will give you a much better cut quality. If you want to use a CNC cutter, consider the options involving laminating below…
Card Materials
| Method | Notes | CNC Cutter Compatibility |
| Plain Paper | Free. You get what you pay for. | Why? |
| Cardstock | Great cards, requires laser printer. | Burr on edge of cards. |
| Laminated Cardstock | Great cards, requires laser printer. | Good cuts. |
| Thick Photo Paper | Excellent quality, but flimsy. | Slight burr on edge of cards. |
| Laminated Photo Paper | Excellent quality, great feel. Best option for non-foils on a CNC cutter. | Excellent cuts. |
| Cardstock-Backed Vinyl Sticker Paper | Excellent quality, excellent feel. Can make foils. Best option for foils or non-foils when cutting with a card die. | Untested, but likely to get a burr. |
| Laminated Paper-Backed Vinyl Sticker Paper | Excellent quality, excellent feel. Can make foils. Best option for foils on a CNC cutter. | Excellent cuts. |
» Plain Paper (In Card Sleeve with a Real Card)
The cheapest way to make playing cards is to NOT make playing cards. Just print on whatever paper you have with whatever printer you have (or even draw on paper with a pen), cut it out into a card shape, and stick it in a card sleeve with a real card behind it.
It’s free and if you’re just having fun with your friends, who cares?
» Cardstock
This will be the closest you can get to official playing cards if your goal is to replicate real cards. You’ll want semi-gloss ~110lb heavyweight cardstock or “black core” cardstock (the stuff used for actual playing cards). However, you’ll need a laser printer to print on most cardstock and any laser printer you can buy for home use is not going to make great quality prints. If you have a color laser printer and are okay with mediocre-looking cards, go for it. However, if you want high quality prints, you need to use enterprise-level laser printers which are either very expensive or at your local office store/printing service.
» Laminated Cardstock
If you get cards printed on cardstock and want to cut them on a CNC cutter, you should laminate them. But, this is a pretty niche situation and defeats the purpose of printing on cardstock to make as realistic cards as possible.
» Thick Photo Paper
Printing on thick photo paper is a simple option. Photo paper alone will never feel the same as a playing card, but it’s extremely simple to print on with any inkjet printer and the cards will look just fine. They’ll just feel flimsy.
» Laminated Photo Paper
Laminating photo paper will give you pretty good results. For accurate thickness, you want ~42lb photo paper and 3mil laminate. For accurate feel of cards, you want ~69lb photo paper and 3mil laminate. My personal preference is going for thicker cards that feel more firm but the choice is up to you.
» Cardstock-Backed Vinyl Sticker Paper
The best of both worlds: the feel of cardstock and the quality of inkjet printing. You need to use inkjet-compatible vinyl sticker paper. You have two options for making the vinyl-cardstock composite cards:
A: Print on inkjet compatible vinyl sticker paper, stick that to the cardstock, then cut it out.
or B: Stick the vinyl sticker paper to the cardstock, run the entire composite through your printer, then cut it out.
Option B will give you aligned fronts and backs without human error, but not all printers will take kindly to printing on such shenanigans.
An additional upside to this process is you can get holographic vinyl sticker paper and make foils.
» Laminated Paper-Backed Vinyl Sticker Paper
The same as the previous process, except with thinner paper and the whole thing being laminated. Thinner paper is recommended because if you use heavyweight cardstock / black-core cardstock and laminate over it, your cards are going to be incredibly thick. You can also use the same photo paper you’d normally use for making non-foils if you use this method for making foils.
This is my preferred option due to the laminate making for better cuts on the CNC machine. It’s also the most amount labor involved in making cards, but it makes for some damn good-looking cards.