There's something about age six and Pokemon. It seems every single boy in J's grade one class is as enthusiastic about all things Pokemon as he is! Although they might not be as into memorizing the pokedex as he is, many of the kids seem to have an official card or two in their hands at all times.
Actually, I've even spotted a few of his classmates carrying homemade Pokemon cards around. That inspired me to make a template for J to use to design his own cards too.
By building on his interest in Pokemon, I was hoping that these blank DIY Pokemon card templates would encourage him to explore art and drawing more. The whole family (including myself!) ended up having a blast with these templates. We all joined in to create, draw, and play together.
Although, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that all of us enjoyed drawing our own cards. After all my husband used to collect Pokemon cards as a kid so he has a whole binder full of the original set. Plus, we all learned how to the play the Pokemon trading card game and I got hooked on playing the game on the computer. (Updated note: then we went on to become active Pokemon Go players when that came out!)
But now we can create our own pocket monsters or invent a new type of Pokemon energy if we wanted to. And now your kids can too!
October 2022 Update: The printable is now updated to include new Pokemon card templates for item cards, supporter cards, and stadium cards (after much begging from my kids the last few weeks). And, yes, 7 whole years later and my boys still love to make their own Pokemon cards using these templates!
Design Your Own Pokemon Cards with a Free Printable Template
At first, my oldest, J, was a bit hesitant to draw his own Pokemon. Open-ended activities like this can cause him to freeze up. However, my husband swooped in and slowly got J started drawing some new creatures of his own. Some prompting was involved. However, soon both my husband and J were happily creating a variety of Pokemon and Pokemon hybrids. Not sure who enjoyed this activity more, my husband or J?
One of J's first homemade Pokemon was a powerful green unicorn named Horsey, which you can see him starting to draw below. These blank Pokemon templates sure opened him up to drawing things beyond letters, numbers, planets, and traffic lights (common interests of hyperlexic kids!). I loved watching him get creative and try something new!
Out of all the ones he drew, J's favorite creation was a rather hefty bear named Electrabear. He's a bear Pokemon that uses gold coin energy and loves to collect gold coins in his treasure chest. You can see this new creature enthusiastically throwing coins into his treasure chest on the right. J really became quite the storyteller with these homemade Pokemon cards!
These blank Pokemon card templates quickly became a family favorite activity. Something fun we could all do together, regardless of age and ability.
However, the small templates that I originally made were simply too small for four year old K. So I redesigned the template to make jumbo sized Pokemon cards (8.5" x 11" in size) for him and they worked perfectly!
Don't worry, I've included both the regular sized and jumbo sized Pokemon card templates in the free printable, which you can download at the bottom of this post.
K started off by drawing his favorite Pokemon, Teddiursa, which he paired with his homemade "darkening energy." This darkening energy is also known as black energy depending on which day you ask him about his energy cards.
While I was taking pictures of our homemade creations to include in this post, K came in and insisted that I take a picture of his Teddiursa drawing WITH both darkening energy cards attached. I had originally only taken a picture of his Teddiursa drawing - how dare I! So I had to take another photo and you better believe I had to include it here as well. So here is his much requested picture.
About these Blank Pokemon Card Templates
While shown in black and white in the photos, these blank Pokemon cards are actually in color. I just happen to only have a black and white printer. Weird, I know.
There are 5 pages of templates dedicated to the more regular sized Pokemon cards, including:
- 8 basic Pokemon card templates (no evolution, full art ones, or mega blank Pokemon cards, sorry)
- 8 blank energy card templates
- 8 supporter trainer cards
- 8 item trainer cards
- 8 stadium trainer cards
Not shown in photos, though, is the set of jumbo card templates that I mentioned earlier. Yep, your kids can absolutely make jumbo sized homemade Pokemon cards too, if they'd like. These big cards are great for little kids or kids with fine motor difficulties who might find the small cards too small to write or draw on.
The jumbo blank Pokemon card templates include:
- 1 blank energy card template
- 1 basic Pokemon card template
- 1 blank trainer card (doesn't say supporter, item, or stadium in the corner so it can be adapted to any type of trainer card)
Printing Tips to Make the Most of Your Child's Homemade Pokemon Cards
Simply print off whatever pages and templates you want. And as many as you want! You could print the blank Pokemon cards onto cardstock for durability.
Or print them onto some fun patterned cardstock (the kind where it's white/blank on one side and colorful on the other) so the finished Pokemon cards look like they have unique and custom Pokemon sleeves. You'll always be able to tell which deck is yours!
Once they're printed, simply let the kids design their very own Pokemon cards. What will they come up with?
Once their cards are all drawn and designed, you could always laminate them for durability. Then they'll also look like they're in card protector sleeves (a must if you want to keep your legit Pokemon cards safe). By the way, here's the laminator I use and love. Then the cards are ready take to school to show off or for play in a game or two.
Download the Free Printable Pokemon Card Templates
