Hey, I'm Leon
Leon "Shiny" van der Noll · The Netherlands 🇳🇱
Back in 2020 I was properly into the Pokémon TCG. I was building decks, playing with friends, and sneaking in games with colleagues on lunch breaks. I followed every new set, but the newest ones always came out in Japanese first. All I wanted was to print them as proxies so we could test our decks, and I couldn't find a single site that recreated the latest card styles in a way that actually looked convincing. So I built my own.
- 2020
A little practice project
The first version was mostly me teaching myself web development, with a side goal of making proxies I could actually use. I honestly thought I'd be the only person who ever touched it.
- The turning point
50,000 visitors a month
Then I opened the analytics one day and nearly fell off my chair. Tens of thousands of people were showing up every month. That was all the push I needed to scrap it and build the whole thing again, properly this time, getting a lot better at coding along the way.
- The rebuild
Save your cards, share them around
I added accounts and a database so you could keep your cards, come back to them later, and send them to friends. No more losing everything the second you hit refresh.
- Another rework
A card viewer that keeps up
I reworked the viewer again, and suddenly adding a brand new set went from a painful weekend to something quick. That's why the newest styles usually show up here pretty fast.
- Late 2024
Mike's idea
Mike got in touch and asked if I wanted to turn people’s cards into real ones you can hold. A pile of trials and samples later, the shop opened with sticker prints.
- Early 2026
Real cardstock
Then came proper cardstock, so the cards you make here can finally become actual cards you can shuffle, trade and show off.
- A second card maker
RiftCardMaker joins in
Riftbound came along and the same itch came straight back, so the card maker got a sibling. Both sites run on the same engine, share one account, and now live together under CustomCardMaker.net.
- Today
Over a million of you
What started as one person making proxies for lunch break games now has more than a million people using these sites. It's still just me running everything, and it's still completely free. Thank you for that.
How it used to look
A couple of desktop screenshots from the early days.
Kept free by the shop
Every sticker and card that gets ordered keeps both sites open for everyone else. No ads, no paywalls, nothing hidden behind a login. Chip in if you feel like it, or just make cards for fun.
Made by one person
There's no big company behind this. It's just me, someone who loves trading cards and sweats the small details, from the holo shines to getting each new set's layout just right.