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Attic Cartomancy

Articles from March 2017

Published March 31, 2017

ArCANIS – A Modern Animal Tarot Deck


ArCANIS - A Modern Animal Tarot Deck ArCANIS - A Modern Animal Tarot Deck

I popped over to Kickstarter today to see if there was anything that caught my attention and I found the ArCANIS project. Oh this is a wonderful looking deck. I loved watching the artist drawing the artwork real time in the project video. Deck creator David DePasquale describes his deck as ArCANIS is a tarot deck and 168 page full color companion book that combines a love of animals with simple, modern character design. I just backed the project for a deck and companion book. His project has successfully funded with seventeen days to go. You can find the project and back it here!

Published March 30, 2017

Have Cards Will Read


Attic Cartomancy - Woman and playing cards
Published March 29, 2017

Beautiful Decks: 78 Tarot Carnival


Attic Cartomancy - Beautiful Decks - 78 Tarot Carnival

The 78 Tarot Project takes 78 artists and pairs them with a card to create a beautiful tarot deck with a kaleidoscope of different styles and themes. The decks are funded through Kickstarter and can be readily purchased through the 78 Tarot Project etsy shop. This deck has a carnival theme and the above cards are just a sample. It was hard to pick just a few to show off the card artwork. Check it out!

Published March 29, 2017

Sepia Stains Prints


Sepia Stains Tarot - Prints from the deck artwork - The Empress Sepia Stains Tarot - Prints from the deck artwork - The Magician Sepia Stains Tarot - Prints from the deck artwork - The Moon Sepia Stains Tarot - Prints from the deck artwork - The High Priestess Sepia Stains Tarot - Prints from the deck artwork - The Star Sepia Stains Tarot - Prints from the deck artwork - The Sun

The Attic Shoppe added Sepia Stains tarot art to their print shoppe. So if you’d like to have any of my lovely (though a tad scary if you’ve read their back stories) ladies on your wall, now is the time to get them. Follow this link. 🙂

Published March 29, 2017

Card of the Day: The Tarot’s Two of Swords


Attic Cartomancy - Card of the Day - The Isidore Tarot - Two of Swords

Ugh, the two of swords… fitting. I hate to admit it right now, but it is fitting. It makes me reflect upon the fact that I’m getting sloppy around the edges, so to speak. Pardon me while I get a little wordy.

Almost two years ago I began a process to improve my health and curb my worsening weight issues. For a couple of years my gent and I let ourselves get far too comfortable with our bad habits. We considered it a winter funk and did everything to avoid admitting we were in a fairly serious depression after my (TMI alert) ectopic pregnancy. We both gained weight, but I seemed to be approaching it like an Olympic event. My daily habits were horrible. I ate little to nothing all day long as I worked my butt off, though that work typically was done from a desk. I made us a very large comfort foody type meal late in the evening when we sat down to watch our favorite shows. Typically we drank a few beers. It was just bad and I felt it in every inch of my body.

When there came a point where my gent needed to move down to Ohio, I realized I was barely able to get around on my own. I have a particular type of arthritis in my back that has bothered me since I was a kid. I spent a lot of time having my back manipulated so I wasn’t stuck in either a sitting position or standing. The more weight I put on that existing problem the worst the pain became. So I decided screw this. I’m not going to slowly kill myself because of bad habits. So I went to my doctor and started the process of taking rather drastic steps to fix myself. I won’t go on about that here (I actually tackle that subject in my portfolio blog) but the end result was I lost a good chunk of that weight, all of my weight related issues are null and void now, and after going through physical therapy and now being quite active, my back experiences nearly no pain. When it acts up a little heat and the wonderful kneading fingers of my gent can fix it.

So yay me! Right? Well that would be what it looked like if this was the closing of my television show. The truth is life rolls right along and the behaviors that were there before are always lurking and it gets really easy to fall back into them. The two of swords is me looking away from my slipping habits and finding reasons to rationalize why everything is fine. The truth is I’m a little stressed out and overwhelmed with the great amount of creative work I deal with day in and day out and trying to be a budding business woman. That is quite a bit for a woman who only a few years ago was a hardcore procrastinator and temperamental air fairy. Sometimes my desire is to address that stress the way I used to because it’s easy and what I’ve known for so long. The world has been trying to nudge me for awhile to get my poop back together and get back on track. It is far too easy to go back to the place I came from and I absolutely don’t want to do that.

In this card’s artwork a woman (or grasshopper here as this is my Isidore Tarot) sits blindfolded with two swords crossed before her. Each sword is perfectly balanced with the other one. They represent a stalling point for me. I need to push past that point and remove my blindfold and take a good look at my habits and make better decisions regarding them. Of course my friends tend to tell me I’m being hard on myself, but I tend to counter with: A personality that is all about obsessive behavior needs to keep a tight reign on itself. A personality that is able to rationalize away nearly anything needs to shut up and do better. That is my take on this card. There are additional meanings you can look up for it when you find it in your spread or card draw, each to be used for what you’re looking at the tarot for.

Published March 28, 2017

A Little Bly Cartomancy


Attic Cartomancy - Bethalynne Bajema - Steampunk Symposum - Automaton Bly Art Attic Cartomancy - Bethalynne Bajema - Steampunk Symposum - Automaton Bly Art - Steampunk Poison Ivy

This is not a new deck in the making, but promotional cards for the upcoming convention I mentioned a few days ago. These are the final color versions of some of the black and white illustrations I posted earlier. I love this character! I made cards for her because I’m the tarot lady at conventions so it seemed fitting to advertise with her. If you happen to like her as I do, you can see a little more Bly artwork on my portfolio blog. If you happen to the attend the International Steampunk Symposium in Cinci the end of April, pop by my booth and grab a complimentary card! And say hi 🙂

Published March 28, 2017

New Isidore Tarot Item – Pick Your Card


Attic Cartomancy - The Isidore Tarot - Pick a Tarot Card Attic Cartomancy - The Isidore Tarot - Pick a Tarot Card Attic Cartomancy - The Isidore Tarot - Pick a Tarot Card

Are you on Facebook? Are you following Attic Cartomancy there? If you’re not you might have missed this wonderful graphic my gent made for me that takes advantage of FB’s stop and start function for animated gifs. This post features the major arcana for the Isidore Tarot. Let the graphic roll and stop it to see your tarot card. 🙂

Published March 27, 2017

Beautiful Decks: The Mary-el Tarot


Attic Cartomancy - Beautiful Decks - The Mary-el Tarot

Today’s beautiful deck is the Mary-el Tarot. This is a gorgeous deck featuring original oil paintings by artist Marie White. From what I’ve read fans of this deck were able to watch its creation over a ten year period. It was published by Schiffer Books a few years back. Please take a moment to visit the Mary-el Tarot website here. She offers prints from the deck artwork. And you can pick up the deck itself here.

Published March 27, 2017

Rainy Days and Mondays


Attic Cartomancy - Bicycle Steampunk Playing Cards

It is a rainy day here at the start of the week. Thankfully neither rainy days or Mondays get me down. I am a little apprehensive about the approaching storms though. So as I wait for the booms to come I’m collecting my thoughts over a nice game of solitaire with my Steampunk playing cards given to me many conventions go. The card backs are very pretty, but over all this is a simple Bicycle deck of cards. Now if you want to see a really cool steampunk themed deck, check out the deck from Steampunk Goggles. That aside, now that my convention artwork commission is done I’m back to card things. One of those things is reading Andy Matzner’s The Tarot Activity Book with a review to come.

Published March 17, 2017

Happy St Patty’s Day!


I’d love to tell you that I’m out having green beer and acting a happy fool among friends, however, I’m having a quiet night with my gent where I’m not doing anything. That’s actually the most wonderful thing I can think of to do with my night. As tempting as green beer is. Before I start my blissfully actionless evening, I’ve been giving quick updates to my sites. Sadly I didn’t have the opportunity to get some new cards and deck recommendations for the evening. So instead I’m going to share a sneak-peek at what has me so busy as of late. Please meet the mock-ups for my automaton girl:

Now that the gent and I have moved to the Cincinnati area we’re able to be involved more with the local steampunk community. One of the things we’re doing is helping out with the branding of a local steampunk convention. The automaton girl was a request for event posters, but after turning out so ridiculously cute she’s taken on a life of her own. For the moment we’re calling her Bly after Nellie Bly, the incredible woman who in her Victorian day proved around the world in so many days wasn’t fiction. She did it in forty-two. I can’t say anything more about her future career at the moment, we’re still finalizing the posters, logos, branding, and that sort of thing. It’s a decent size job added to my normal day to day duties, so forgive me for my few days of silence. I’ll be back this weekend with regular programming, so to speak. Now go enjoy that green beer! Or, if you’re actually like me, some green Hi-C because you don’t actually drink beer. 🙂 Oh, wow, and ignore my toes! Ha! I didn’t notice they were in there.

Published March 13, 2017

An outside thought on crowdfunding


This here is a good read for those about to tackle crowdfunding for your deck. It outlines some of the hiccups of using this method to fund your project. I’ve experienced quite a few of the pros and cons of using crowdfunding to get a deck out there. With the Isidore Tarot it worked wonderfully, though it was a really hard/busy couple of months with promotion and then perk fulfillment. Then there was the Tea Bats Lenormand that was meant to promote the deck and help my start-up tea business with my friend. The promotion was awesome, but I ran into so many problems where I ended up losing money on the venture and worried about knocks to my reputation. These are learning experiences that anyone new to the idea should take a moment to read. It might help you be more successful. 😉

Published March 13, 2017

TBT: Moments from Isidore Tarot Fundraising


Attic Cartomancy - The Isidore Tarot

A few years back my shoppe prepared to offer the second edition of the Isidore Tarot. We did some fundraising to get the second edition printed and one of the options was handmade tarot bags in one of these materials, and hand painted Isidore prints. They were fun to make, but the size and scope of fundraising like that means A LOT of work at the end of the day. I got really sick of metallic paints for awhile there. :p

Published March 10, 2017

The Minor Arcana that Never Was


Attic Cartomancy - Black Ibis Minor Arcana

I’ve been systematically organizing my many external hard-drives and with that task stumbling upon past work. These were the first prototypes for the Black Ibis Tarot’s minor arcana. Specifically the King and Queen of Coins. I ended up nixing the idea because they looked very close to the Sepia Stain’s minor arcana, which wasn’t a bad thing. The Sepia and Ibis are companion decks from the same story so there are some similarities between them. I want the Black Ibis minor arcana to be more unique though, as well as more colorful. As a result my dark King and Queen went into the unused folder. One day I’ll make a bat-poop crazy deck that is made up of nothing but unused or left over art. 😉

Published March 8, 2017

Beautiful Decks: Or Geeky Ones! the Avengers Tarot


Attic Cartomancy - Beautiful Decks - The Avengers Tarot

Being a bit of a comic book geek I’m rather surprised I didn’t run across this deck sooner. This is the major arcana devoted to Marvel’s Avengers. It’s cute, whimsical, with just a dollop of the gratuitous considering some of our Avengers’ modesty is only maintained by a perfectly placed cloth. (See Thor and Captain America ;p) So far all I can find out about this deck is that Julia Cross created it and I can’t find a website for her, not even a deviantart page. It is readily seen all over pinterest and tumblr though. It’s very well done, but given that it’s a fan deck I doubt it would be readily available for purchase without some licensing hiccups. I’ve only seen nine cards so far so I’m not sure it’s complete yet.

Published March 7, 2017

TBT: Little Ricky and his Tiny Tarot


Attic Cartomancy - Little Ricky the Tarot Reading Bat

I collect bats. My favorite bat maker is Samantha, one half of the awesome duo Frenchy and the Punk. This cute guy of Samantha’s was adopted by my niece Stacy when she trekked to New England with me for a steampunk convention. Little Ricky here has his own bat-size Isidore Tarot I made him. He delighted in giving us a reading during a break photographing my niece and the deck for my shoppe’s catalog a few years back.

Published March 6, 2017

Card of the Day: The Tarot’s Temperance


Attic Cartomancy - Card of the Day - The Isidore Tarot Alternative Temperance Card

Today’s card of the day is Temperance from my Isidore Tarot. This is actually the first version of the card. There are only a few special decks that included alternative versions of certain cards. There were very few card designs that were a challenge for me, but I struggled a bit with the Temperance card.

As for the card itself, I like to think of Temperance as the just take a moment to exhale and relax card. It’s about patience and knowing how to calmly balance things in your life. When I see this card it makes me want to take a moment and give thought to what is going on in my life and what it is I’m trying to achieve and am I still on track for that? It’s a card of quiet thoughtfulness.

Published March 2, 2017

Beautiful Decks: Le Grand Tarot Belline


Grand Tarot Belline

While on the topic of Le Grand Tarot Belline (from my AHS Coven entry), it would make a good beautiful deck entry. The original Le Grand Tarot Belline is from the nineteenth century and was designed by Jules Charles Ernest Billaudot who went by the name Magus Edmond. He appears to be a pretty notable cartomancer in his day. The deck was published by Magus Belline after he acquired the rights to the cards from Edmond. The version available these days was printed by the Grimaud Company in 1966. Doing a brief search for available decks they’re mostly to be found on Ebay and will set you back a penny or two. The Tarot Garden site has some information as well as a translation for this deck that is worth reading.

Published March 1, 2017

On Wednesday We Wear Black


American Horror Story Belline Grand Tarot American Horror Story Belline Grand Tarot

Hollywood has always enjoyed using the tarot as a plot devise, especially when it comes to spooky or supernatural story-lines. Case in point: American Horror Story Coven. These images are from the third season episode The Axeman Cometh. The card seen in the climax of the scene is the grim reaper from the Le Grand Tarot Belline deck. (Spoiler Alert) The murderous axeman approaches the witch who dares play classical music on the night he demanded jazz music to be heard throughout New Orleans. She sits at her tarot spread and turns over her last card as he creeps up on her with axe in hand. She whispers that she always knew it would be death. The gotcha moment of the scene is when it turns out another witch is behind the axe man and comes for him just as he swings his axe for the fortune telling one and we see the edge of his axe pierce the grim reaper card before the axeman is taken out by the witches. In this instance the tarot’s most improperly used Death card is a major focus of the scene and used for dramatic effect. In such cases no one is so concerned that the Death card is typically never taken literally. It’s a card about endings, change and new beginnings, among other things. I can’t fault Hollywood for their literal use of the very grim visual aspect of the card.

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ABOUT THE CARTOMANCER:Bethalynne is a Michigan native who spent much of her early life chasing the fae around her grandfather's nearly mythical fairy tale garden. When the fae weren't calling, the strange shadows in the closet were whispering. When it was finally suggested that she kindly bring herself down from the clouds (and out from those dark places) she turned her expansive imagination towards capturing her characters and their worlds through writing & drawing. The latter has led to her having a notable career as a professional artist and writer for the past twenty five years. She currently resides in southern Ohio with her husband and fellow artist Myke Amend. You can view her portfolio or visit The Attic Shoppe Trading Co. to see all of her unique things. :)


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