How to Make Simple Tarot Cards

It's difficult to find a tarot deck designed by someone else that 100 percent fits your own vision of what the cards look like. The simple solution, of course, is to design your own tarot deck.

Even if you aren't an accomplished artist, you can find plenty of free clip art on the computer to help you design simple--or even not-so-simple--tarot cards that work for you. With a little inspiration and imagination, you can have your own custom tarot deck in no time.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Card stock
• Laminating machine (optional)
• Markers (optional
• Pens (optional)
• Paint (optional)
• Small objects such as feathers, buttons, etc. (optional)
• Computer clip art (optional)

1. Decide how many cards you want. Decide if you want just the Major Arcana cards or the entire deck (Major Arcana plus cups, swords, pentacles and wands). Maybe you can create your own system with your own unique number of cards.

2. Play around with the images. Whether you decide to create a traditional deck or invent your own, take some time to meditate on and doodle around with different images for the various cards. These images can be as simple or as complicated as you wish--the three of swords card, for instance, can be as basic as three swords and nothing more.

3. Decide how to create the artwork. The images you want coupled with your artistic ability will determine what medium you will use for your cards. You can find plenty of artwork that's in the public domain online that you can cut and paste and reconfigure on Photoshop. You can do simple line drawings directly onto card stock.
   
   The Zerner Farber tarot deck, for example, is a collage of various fabric scraps that carefully depict the images. The pictures on the New York tarot deck are all photographs of various people and places around New York City.

4. Laminate your cards. If you mean to use your cards for actual readings, you may want to consider laminating each card. This will protect the artwork and make the cards last much longer.

Tips & Warnings

• Even if your cards are just for your own use, try to stay away from images and artwork that are copywrited. Someone got into a bit of trouble a few years ago by using images from various "Peanuts" comic strips in a deck.