Making a Deck Your Own: Part 2: Re-Naming

Last time I introduced you to the idea of modifying a tarot deck, and showed you three was to trim a deck. This time I’m going to show you how I renamed the court cards in the Wayhome Tarot. 

There’s so much I love about the Wayhome Tarot. I love the table setting in the 10 of Pentacles. the circus horses of The Devil, and the heart and brain of the Empress and Emperor. I love that it’s a non-human deck, showing the natural world. This deck made so much sense to me.  The creators, Bakara Wintner and Autumn Whitehurst, write  that “each image could reasonably be found on a single, winding walk through upstate New York.” I used to live in Western New York, and these images seemed like home.  

I bought this deck because I love how the court cards were imagined: human silhouettes containing the essence of the card. I absolutely loved the King of Swords as a modern windmill/wind farm. But I absolutely hated that it was called Father of Swords.  I bought the deck anyway, thinking that I could work with Father/Mother/Son/Daughter rather than King/Queen/Knight/Page. I couldn’t. I kept seeing my father’s face whenever I drew a king card. I couldn’t work that way. Court cards are already some of the trickiest cards to interpret, and I couldn’t deal with the associations this naming convention was bringing up. I knew I had to do something about them. 

I thought about trimming, but there was no way for me to do it evenly across all the cards. The Majors and Minors had the name of the card written across the bottom, while the court cards had the names on the top. If I couldn’t cut out the names, then I had to cover them. I thought about just writing a new name and sticking it on, but I couldn’t get my handwriting even enough. I asked for advice from Tarot with Scissors, and dredged up my grad school notes on archival preservation materials, and got to work. 

I found a close enough font match in Papyrus 12 point. I used Avery 5260 address labels that I had on hand, and printed off a sheet containing the new names.

I trimmed them to size using an X-Acto knife.

I colored them in with an alcohol-based marker (Art Alternatives Illustration Marker in  E2 Sand) so that it wasn’t bright stationery white. It isn’t an exact match but it’s consistent across all court cards, so I’m OK with that.  

I sealed everything with 2 coats of satin Mod Podge, to prevent the edges of the labels from lifting. 

I am so very happy with how this modification turned out. I’m using it for my daily draws this month. Depending on the humidity, the Mod Podge gets a little sticky, but it’s no big deal. I can do an overhand shuffle and a riffle shuffle and the labels aren’t lifting. And while there is a thickness to the court cards that isn’t present in the rest of the deck, I can’t feel it enough to “cheat” in my readings. 

This modification, while drastic, has changed the Wayhome tarot from something that I wanted to love but couldn’t, into one of my favorite decks. 

Making a Deck Your Own: Part 1: Trimming

You just bought a tarot deck, and you love it. 

Except, maybe, one thing doesn’t resonate with you. 

Maybe it’s too large for your hands and it’s difficult to shuffle. Or you don’t like the borders. 

Or perhaps you want to make it more your own. 

Some people believe that you shouldn’t change a deck at all. Others think that a deck is a tool, and tools should be used, and if they can be made better (more useful), they should. I’m firmly in the latter group. If you have a deck that languishing and gathering dust for want of a few modifications, then make those modifications so that you can use your deck!

Tarot, is after all, just pretty pictures on paper. And it’s easy to transform paper.  Scissors, glue, tape, stickers, glitter, contact paper, hole punches… there are so many ways! There’s a wonderful Facebook group called  Tarot with Scissors: Deck Modification, Crafts, and Art. Members share their projects, tools, and techniques. I’ve spent hours looking at their creativity. 

Two of the most popular modification are trimming and edging. Trimming is where you cut a deck down to a different size (usually cutting off the borders) and edging is coloring in the edges of a deck with marker or ink.  I haven’t felt the need to edge a deck, but I’ve trimmed a few.

Trimming is one of the easiest things you can do to a deck. You can do it with scissors. Here I am using regular scissors to cut along the line (takes me back to elementary school art class). I’m trimming the 10 of Cat Treats (Pentacles) from the Cat Tarot by Megan Lynn Kott.

You’ll get a neater edge, and it’ll be easier on your hands,  with just a few tools: an X-Acto knife, a metal ruler, and a self-healing cutting mat. This time I’ll trim the 7 of Cat Toys (Wands)

Line up the ruler with the edge of the artwork on the card. Using firm pressure on the ruler to hold the card in place, cut next to the ruler with the knife. 

The card will have square edges. You can leave them, but if you want rounded edges, you can use scissors, or buy a corner punch.  

If you decide you like trimming decks, you may want to get a paper trimmer, or even a guillotine. Depending on the thickness of the cards, you can cut multiple cards at once with a trimmer or guillotine. I’m trimming the 4 of Cups. 

The Cat Tarot is a standard size tarot deck measuring 4.75” x 2.75” (120 mm x 70 mm). Once the borders are trimmed, it measures 4.33” x 2.33” (110 mm x 60 mm). 

Have you modified a deck? What have you done to make a deck your own? 

Next time, I’ll share a more extreme deck modification. 

Tarot Journaling

I’ve been journaling since I was 12 years old, and my 7th grade English teacher Mrs B got me into the habit. She started every class with 10 minutes of writing. Sometimes there was a prompt, sometimes it was free writing. We were expected to write, and every few weeks she’d check our journals for quantity, not for content. That wiring practice has served me well throughout my education and professional life. 

Some years I’ve kept diaries, some years I’ve tried Bullet Journaling or other productivity methods. I’ve tried to keep different notebooks for different things: one for work, one for creative writing, one for tarot, one for dreams. But the pandemic has shown me that I work best when I have one notebook going at a time, and I use it for everything. I’ve been journaling for 30 years, and I have 51 notebooks filled. 

Along the way of learning to be the best journaler I could be, I tried a lot of different ways to keep track of tarot cards and spreads. 

I’m not an artist- I can’t draw. I’m a writer. So my journaling reflects that. But I needed to find a way to record spreads. For a while, I used the Day One app to keep track of spreads, where I found the spread, and the reading I did. I liked this, for the visuals and the ability to tag entries, and to get “on this day” style reminders. But I’m not as prolific a writer on my phone, and they went from a pay once to a monthly subscription model, so I’m not using that any more. 

I map out the spread with numbers to show the shape of the spread, and then I list the cards. Then I go through and write down the individual meanings and impressions and finally I synthesize the meaning. This has been consistent practice for me over the years.  Here’s a reading from January 2008 showing this technique. 

Over the years I’ve also tried to maintain a daily draw practice. I also had an Instagram account where I posted my card of the day. Every morning I’d pull a card and take a photo, and then write a few words while waiting for my coffee to brew. But I got too caught up in chasing likes, and it felt too performative. So I deleted that account. 

For a while I had dreams of data analysis so I kept a spreadsheet of my daily cards. That became a chore.  And I never got enough data to do any cool graphs. 

Eventually I realized that I love analog journaling. I prefer the feel of pen on paper (especially if I’m using one of my fancy fountain pens).  So late 2020 I ordered the Many Moons 2021 Lunar Planner. There’s just room for only a few lines, so the planner doesn’t generate pressure or performance expectations. 

I keep this planner, pen and the deck I’m using that month on my night stand. Every night before bed, I draw a card and write a few sentences about what happened that day. The small daily space doesn’t give me the fear of a blank page, and I don’t feel the need to go on and on to fill up space. I just clear my mind, shuffle and draw a card, and then write it down, along with a few words about the day. It’s a small ritual of putting the day behind me so I can go to bed. This is working better for me than any other daily tarot practice. 

Do you keep a tarot journal?  How do you keep track of readings or daily practice? 

How to Start Reading Tarot

Reading tarot is a simple as shuffling the deck, asking a question, and turning over a card to get the answer? 

Yes…. and also no. It can be that simple, or it can be complex. If you’re just starting out reading tarot, it can be overwhelming to see a more practiced reader make it look simple. If you’re new to tarot, and wondering where to start, read on. Also, if you’re an experienced reader, and want to reboot your practice, 

When you get a new deck, you should start by looking at all the cards; making sure they’re all there. You might come across a few extra cards, and you can lay those aside for now. You’ll see that the cards are packaged in order: first all the major arcana, and then each suit from Ace-King. A large part of reading tarot is the randomness of turning over cards, so you want to mix up your deck. Shuffle the cards. You can do a riffle shuffle or an overhand shuffle, or anything that works to randomize the deck. You can even spread the cards out on a flat surface and just whirl them around in a game of 78 card pickup. Once your cards are nice and mixed up, collect them, and neaten the deck. 

Now, to start reading! Shuffle the cards again, this time do so while thinking of a question. A good question to start with is  “What do I need to know today?” 

When you feel you’ve shuffled your deck sufficiently, stop, and turn over the top card. This will be the answer to your question. 

What’s next? How do you go from the picture on the card to an answer? 

Start by looking at the card. Are there people or characters there? What are they doing? What objects are present? What is in the foreground of the image, and what is in the background? What symbols are present? 

If you want to go deeper into image analysis, check out these lessons from the U.S. National Archives, the Getty Institute, and Understanding Media.

As you’re doing a visual analysis, you’ll be creating meaning. You’re adding your own experiences and associations to what is present in the card. 

I drew the Seven of Pentacles from The Melanated Classic Tarot

Seven of Pentacles from The Melanated Classic Tarot

A young Black man in quasi-medieval European clothes leans on a hoe or shovel or some other garden tool. His head is in his hands. He’s looking at his plants, which are pentacles. They’re full and lush, and have green leaves. But they’re not ready for harvest yet. He’s waiting, maybe impatiently. Or maybe he’s staring at the crops, wondering if it’s all worth it—all the hoeing, raking, weeding, planting. Will it be enough? Will his work be enough? In the background, there are rolling purple hills. The sky is blue, and the man has a bright light aura around him. 

How does what you see help you answer your initial question? Start to to put the pieces together. 

My question is “what do I need to know today?” Maybe my answer is I’m doing a lot of hard work, and I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Maybe my answer is that I still have a lot of work to. 

Next, look up the meaning. Almost all tarot decks come with a little white book (LWB) that will give you a basic explanation for the interpretation and meaning of each card. Read that for your card, and see if it matches up to what you came up with during your visual analysis. 

The Smith-Waite Tarot Deck Centennial Edition showing the cards, box and Little White Book

Add what you learn here to what you learned from the visual analysis. How does the answer to your question change and grow? 

The LWB is a great place to start, but you can go deeper. Some decks have a larger paperback that accompanies the deck, and will go much deeper into symbolism, color choice, artistic layout. If my deck has such a book, I find it to be a worthy investment.  Another option is to get a book that is about tarot in general.  Some of my favorite books about tarot are Rachel Pollack’s 78 Degrees of Wisdom, Michelle Tea’s Modern Tarot, and Mary K. Greer’s 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card. If you have one of these books, or another tarot book nearby, take a look at it. Read the entry on your card. What does it add to what you already know?  How does this new information change the answer? 

The Little White Book from the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot on top of Modern Tarot by Michelle Tea

Tea’s Modern Tarot entry on the Seven of Pentacles states with the sentence “When the Seven of Pentacles appears, it’s break time” (p.285). This is something I hadn’t considered  or discovered in my visual analysis, and it adds a new layer to my interpretation of the card. Maybe the figure is looking at the pentacles and is pleased and proud of the progress he’s made.  

What do you do with this information? You can start a tarot journal, either in a paper notebook or online somewhere (google doc, instagram handle), where you keep track of the cards you draw and your interpretations of them.  Another idea is to take a notebook and at the top of each page, write the name of the card. Under it, put your notes and thoughts about meaning. 

Experienced readers: What other advice would you give to folks just starting to read tarot? 

Beginner readers: You should be ready to start reading! Find a deck, give it a shuffle, and pull a card!

Want to deepen your tarot studies? Join us for Introduction to Tarot in June!

Cartomancy : Tarot and Oracle and Lenormand and Playing Cards, oh my!

Cartomancy is fortune telling or divination done using a deck of cards. It’s not just limited to tarot. You can use oracle cards or Lenormand cards or even regular playing cards. 

A deck of blue Bicycle brand playing cards, Pixie’s Astounding Lenormand, Amethyst Oracle, Sun and Moon Tarot

Tarot cards are a deck of 78 cards, containing a minor arcana of 4 suits Ace-King (cups, wands, swords,  pentacles) and a major arcana of 22 cards. Sometimes the names are changed, pentacles becomes coins, cups become vessels. Sometimes there’s an extra card or two in the deck.  There are three main styles of tarot cards: Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, and Marseille. 

Rider-Waite-Smith (often abbreviated RWS)  is named for the publisher Rider, the author Arthur Evans Waite, and the artist, Pamela Coleman-Smith.  It was published in 1909 and is considered a classic and basic deck. Many tarot books use these illustrations for the cards. Also, many contemporary decks are adaptations of the RWS  imagery. 

The Thoth deck was created in the 1930s and 40s  by Aleister Crowley  and painted by Lady Freida Harris. It wasn’t published until 1969. The Thoth deck has 78 cards, but there are differences between it and the RWS.  In Thoth decks, Strength is 11 and Justice is 8, while in RWS Strength is 8 and Justice is 11. Also, The court cards in RWS are Page, Knight, Queen, King, while in Thoth they are called Knight, Queen, Prince, Princess.  There are other, more esoteric differences between the decks, like astrological correspondence. 

The Marseille tarot is based on a 17th century French deck and is one of the oldest complete versions of the tarot. The art style of modern Marseille is based on early modern woodcuts. Notably, this deck features no illustrations for the minor arcana, only the number of batons, swords, coins, cups of that card. 

Despite the difference in their illustrations, RWS, Thoth, and Marseille decks are all tarot decks and can be read the same way. Labyrinthos has a very helpful chart laying out all the similarities and differences among the three tarot systems. 

The 8 of Pentacles from the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck, Sun and Moon Tarot, The Gentle Tarot

If you’re determined, you can also use playing cards, and map the tarot reading of the minor arcana onto a modern 52 card deck. Of course, you won’t have the Major Arcana, and you’re missing one of the court cards, but the suits map Hearts to Cups, Spades to Swords, Diamonds to Pentacles, and Clubs to Wands. 

The 2 of Swords from the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot and the 2 of Spades

Lenormand cards were named after Marie Anne Lenormand, a French fortune teller and cartomancer active in the 18th & 19th centuries. A normal Petit Lenormand deck has 36 cards, each with a specific symbol, and usually with a playing card associated. Lenormand cards are read using very specific spreads such as the Grand Tableau. 

The Fish, The Clover and The Key from Pixie’s Astounding Lenormand

Oracle cards are completely freeform and are up to their creator. They can be any number of cards, on any theme. There are no rules or restrictions around oracle cards. 

Oracle cards from Inquire Within, Amethyst Oracle, and The Threadbound Oracle

You can also combine systems. Sometimes I will use an oracle card as a focus, and then daw 1-3 tarot cards to give it deeper meaning.

The Overwhelm card from the Amethyst Oracle is above a three card reading from the Sun and Moon Tarot: Death, The Sun, Three of Cups

Do you mix card systems? Or do you do tarot in conjunction with another divination system? 

Inspired to try some different decks? Take a look at our collection!