I found Christian artist Jody Eklund and Black Ink Playing Cards through one of his Kickstarters.  Jody uses playing cards as the outlet for his art, designing truly gorgeous card decks.  They’re all different, so the set here is just one example.  (Click through to his website to see more, or visit Kickstarter to see his newest project.)

Each card series is available in a variety of sets/combinations.  The one pictured here is the Inception Signature Series.  It includes all three decks in the Inception series — Intellectus, Inceptus, and Illustratum — in a foiled cardboard pack.  Each deck is numbered and sealed and includes a special signature card.  You can also purchase individual card decks if you only need one.

The cards are designed around a theme, and many of them would also be useful as a teaching tool.  The men and women depicted were real men and women, so playing with the cards provides a natural segue into talking about their lives and history.  As we all know what playing cards are, and what really makes them special is the art, I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves for the rest of this post.  (For some reason, I neglected to get photographs of the backs of the cards.  They’re foiled, and look much like the tuck boxes.)

These cards make a great gift item, because they’re useful but also special.  (Need a new game to play with your cards?  Mao is one of our favorites!)