Feeling a little punchy today!

A playing card is a gift to crafters. Because it's pre-sealed art, all laminated and ready to go! Here is something cute I made: my Queen of Hearts pendant.

In close-up, you can see the lacy cut-out corners.

To make one like it, you will need a special tool, a type of paper punch that takes a lacy-looking bite out of a corner of your art. You can buy them at craft or paper stores - but I'm really hoping some of you might have one already, especially if you're a scrapbooker.

Just a few easy steps to this project. First, pick a card. (Any card.) I found this charming knight in a deck of Spanish playing cards:

Next, cut two squares from scrap playing cards or cardstock.

Two is usually enough; if your playing card is really flimsy, you can add a couple more layers. Use one as a template to cut out whichever pretty bit of the card you want to feature.
Now lace-punch the bottom three corners of each square:

Stack the squares, and try to get the lacy cutouts lined up. They won't be perfect!

What I usually end up doing is making several extra squares, and choosing the ones that match the pendant piece best. Then use a skewer, hole punch or other poky thing to make a hole at the top, for hanging your pendant.

Now you have two options: to glue, or not to glue. For the Queen of Hearts, I glued all the layers together. Then I added two jump rings - one for the beaded dangle, one for the necklace cord. Here's that closeup again:

But glue is optional. For my Spanish knight, I simply stacked the three layers, and allowed my jump ring and beaded embellishment to connect everything together.

It's sort of loosey-goosey, but it works. In a way, I almost prefer the slight jingle-jangle of the unglued layers.

Here is my punchy Spanish Knight playing card necklace:

I like him! Do you?

If you can lay your hot little hands on a lacy corner punch, perhaps you'll be inspired to find your own playing card (or other laminated art) and give this a try.