u/yung12gauge

Following up on my post from 3 weeks ago, I've continued to make cards in a collage style. I have strayed almost entirely from the idea of 'side quests' and am now making them just because it's fun and therapeutic. I bought a stack of old magazines from Half Price Books and am having a blast chopping up images and words to make encouraging and thought provoking messages or calls to action.

A big part of my process is letting the cards "make themselves"; I try to find words and images from the same article and make interesting phrases by reordering the words. I try not to cut the words up into individual letters, but instead let the phrasing in the magazine become the verbiage I use on the card. Sometimes I find that I cut an image out, and the image on the back is even cooler; I use that one, because it feels like fate wanted that image to exist in that way. I am usually a very analytical and intentional person and it has been kind of exciting to give up control and let things unfold.

I was inspired by u/rhodelzrd 's post here to make a few 'metadeck' cards, like their "scrying" card (draw three, choose one, shuffle) and so I think in my next batch of cards, I'll handwrite the text and make some that introduce some needed structure and more explicit instructions for things I'd actually like to see in the deck.

I watched the jerry documentary that came out like 15 years ago on vimeo and forgot all about it until recently when I saw the PMG doc on youtube. Got excited and decided to make a deck of cards to help me engage with my hobbies better, a sort of "side quest" deck. Originally I was making cards on 3x5 index cards (see the top of the screen) but I found an old deck of cards in the garage and decided to sacrifice it for the project. I saw the wightstar video on youtube which inspired me to make these scrapbook style cards using old magazines, stickers, and some clippings from the existing index cards.

There is a creative challenge in capturing the "essence" of the sidequest/task I'm trying to record as a card with the images and text I find in the magazines I have - instead of "go for a walk", the next text is "travel in a new world". I like it though, because it implies something slightly different - go to a new place. Doesn't have to be walking (bike! drive! fly!), but can't be the same-old-same-old. I like the idea of some of the text being ambiguous, to inspire action without being explicitly prescriptive.

My process now is to flip through magazines in search of either cool pictures for backgrounds, or for words that stand out to me. I clip words and backgrounds as I go, and when I find some stuff that feels related, or when a coherent card starts to come together, I make it. I don't entirely know what all of these cards will "do" - some of them are just for the fun of creating, at this point. I feel a little less in control of what the cards say and what's happening with the deck, but I feel creatively inspired by the actual deckbuilding process that I think it's a huge positive for me.