How to Make Your Own Tarot Cards

While there are many types of tarot cards available, designing your own deck can be a meaningful exercise. There are several ways to go about making your own tarot cards, and they are all dependant on varying levels of skill and price.

The Artist:

If you're particularly adept at drawing or painting, you may want to consider using your skills to design your cards from the ground up.

Gather your art supplies, 20 sheets of medium weight cardstock in white or off-white, a ruler, sharp scissors or craft knife, and a can of protective spray to coat your finished cards.

Drawing your own tarot cards is a great way to really study each one individually. Each symbol is important, and finding your own meaning for each will help train your intuition. Most modern tarot decks come in packs of 78, but as you're designing your own, you can start with only the cards that you feel are the most appropriate for you.

Once you've finished drawing/painting your cards, simply cut them out (the ruler is to help keep lines straight), and coat with the protective spray.

For Fun:

Have you considered using your friends for your own benefit? Consider dressing them up in robes and using your own chalice, sword, etc as props. Take them out to your local park, cemetery, or other locations that could serve your purpose, and take plenty of pictures. Feel free to use your photo editor; maybe your dog would make an excellent Fool, or Cinderella's Castle could be the Lightning Struck Tower. Just make sure everyone is safe, and do something nice for your friends to say thank you. Making extra sets would be a great gift idea for those involved.

Scan your photos, edit as you wish, and do one of the following:

1. Print on plain cardstock, cut out and trim to tarot size cards, and coat with protective spray.

2. Skip to the next section.

For Technophiles:

PlainCards.com offers a whole range of products to make tarot cards (as well as playing, flash, and other types of cards). Not only do they have a downloadable software package for designing your cards, but they offer cardstock with punch-out plain cards, and cans of protective coating.

You can scan photos or drawings into the program, or (for private use only) check out the image search on your favorite search engine. The software package lets you edit the pictures, add text, and lines the pictures up for printing on their special cardstock.

Two things to watch out for with this method:

1. The cardstock feeds well only through a top loading printer.

2. The protective coating works very well, but is not healthy to breathe. Make certain that you have very good ventilation if you use this spray.

Making your own tarot cards is all about creativity, so gather your supplies and have fun!