52 Reasons I Love You tutorial

As you may have seen in a previous post, i made my Boyfriend the 52 Reasons I Love You cards for Christmas and i wanted to share with you how i made them.

Things you will need:

• A deck of playing cards 
• Book rings (i got mine at 2" and they might be a little big so you could downsize)
• PVA glue
• Decorations if you want 
• Time and patience 

The first i did was create holes for the rings in the cards, sadly i didn't get pictures of this stage, most other posts i read did a template then hole punched them, i thought this would take too long so i asked my dad for his advice, he said i can drill them in a few minutes, so my dad got his power drill out, marked up and drilled for me, all cards were done in a few minutes, a great time saving tip and it didn't ruin any of my cards. Be sure to make sure the front cover page (which is the plain side of the card) is turned round so you drill into the right way, This front and back page will be the Jokers so don't discard them.

Next was onto the making the template and coming up with the reasons. I made my template on word as i'm simple and don't use any fancy software. The template is actually the bit that took me some time, but i finally got it after measuring the card (i took a face card and measured the box it sits in) and then just copied and pasted it 54 times. I have uploaded my template to Google Docs so you can download it here for free to save you some time (the version i had up before actually didn't work, so this is just one, but copy and paste it over and over for the perfect template). The font i used for my text was Elephant but in hindsight i might have changed this. I also changed it to 52 things i love about you. Coming up with the 52 reasons was actually easy, i had about 60 so got to choose my favorites.

What my blank template looked like

Once i had got all the reasons done, it was time to print them out, cut them out and stick them down. I used PVA glue but if i was to do it again i would use less as it marked my cards a bit and made them look a bit messy but i convinced myself this added to their charm. When you are doing this work on a system so that you keep the cards and reasons in order, i sorted my reasons into piles of 12 and worked a suite at a time to ensure i didn't lose track. They will take a few hours to dry, i left mine for about 4 hours to ensure they didn't stick together when i put them back on the rings.

The cards drying, ready to be put together.

Now it was time to decorate  i bought some sticky hearts from Paperchase, i didn't go overboard but i have seen some people do amazing decorations, just google it and you will see. 

 The finished product

Ans finally i will show you what a few of the final cards looked like. 

I presented it in this vintage, shabby chic box that my mum gave me, it will keep it safe.

I can gladly say my boyfriend loved it, we actually sat together and went through it when he opened it, he laughed at all the little silly things i listed and told me it was such a special gift he will treasure  I am a complete craft novice and found this really easy to do, so if i can do it, i'm sure you can. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you make them, please send me the link!