The Babes of Camelot

How many times have you been sitting around, wondering how to creatively pack a gift for special friend with a quirky family geneology that claims she can trace her lineage back to Merlin? Suddenly, you remember the cool art book you have checked out from the library AND an old, but little used tarot deck on your bookshelf. And VOILA, the Babes of Camelot gift bag is born. I think we've all been there.

Inspired by the fun projects in Suzanne Samanaitis' richly illustrated Kaleidoscope: Ideas and Projects to Spark Your Creativity, my usually non-crafty self was jonesing to make something, so I set about putting together the perfect project for my low craft attention span. All it takes is a deck of cards, some packing tape (I think clear contact paper would work nicely too), a pair of scissors and whatever other paper or embellishments strike your fancy for decoration. Suzanne's version was a cool black and white bag made out of playing cards, but, really, any type of deck or design on heavy card stock will work.

I made mine out of part of an old Arthurian tarot deck. It was perfect for my purposes, because of not only my friend's lineage (hee!), but also because of a certain cheesetastic geezers of rock factor in some of the artwork. While I thought the deck was awesomely mythical and mystical at the time of purchase (I wish I could blame it on drugs, but alas...), I now realize that females in the illustrations look like they were pulled out of a Heart video and many of the males appear to have been plucked straight out of a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert then dressed in pseudo-medieval garb. But through the magic of Merlin, it all works out, because nothing says birthday mirth like a King Arthur who looks like he could break into his rendition of "Free Bird" at any moment. Put it all together and it is not only functional, but mockably fabulous. A total win win!