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It’s October!!

Finally! I spent the last day of September with my friend Anastasia a.k.a. Acid Poptart, a wonderful writer and model. Between her costume and my mask we were able to bring Madam Lydia Wilhelmina to life. Below is a sample. There are a few more samples in my IGG updates. Speaking of which, 183% funded! I’m moving towards my first stretch goal so I can bump up everyone’s perks. Thank you so much to everyone who has backed it so far. 🙂 Speaking of which, I have review decks I need to package up and send off into the world. More to come!

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina

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Card of the Day: The Lydia Queen of Coins

Attic Cartomancy - Card of the Day - Queen of Coins

I adore this card, for both its meaning and the collage process to create it. I have a heavy dose of French-Italian painter Frédéric Soulacroix’s work in my coins suit. There is a sleek elegance to his style and his paintings almost always feature a lavish and comfortable scene. These worked very well as a foundation for many of the coin cards. The thing I wanted to make more drastic in each collage were the faces. I wanted less cheerful faces to peer from behind the many masks used in the suit. Many of the cards aren’t dark, so I wanted the masquerade aspect of Halloween to play heavily in them.

My queen is a strong woman. She’s the master of her domain. The mother to those around her who keeps a good home for them. The ruler over her working domain and practical keeper of her coins. And she does all of this with a simple grace and a level head. As the keeper of my home and my own business I identify with her quite well. There is a sometimes an intense balance that must be maintained to keep home and business both equally successful. It is far too easy to let time with a business take away from time that should be spent in the home and with family. Learning that type of balance doesn’t always happen over night. It took me two decades, but my reward was having a better home, my own independence in my business, and just enough extra to be generous with others where I can.

In my card my queen relaxes with a book in the very comfortable world she has worked hard to create. She is surrounded by nature and those things she feels are her creature comforts. She is keeping an eye on her coin. In the theme of the Lydia deck she is a part of the last masquerade of summer that comes on the night of the autumn solstice. Her masked affair begins in those last green moments of summer and ends in the first changing colors of the start of autumn. She’s one of the prettiest cards in the deck.

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Another Grimoire Page for Lydia

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes -Grimoire

So! As I’ve stated earlier, I gave my Lydia Tarot a soft launch a week back. I wanted to post the sale Sept 13th, a date very important to me because of my mother, and to give the campaign as much of an autumn timeline leading up to Halloween as I could. In doing this I decided to go a bit light on the whole promoting thing; mostly because at that time I was only starting to get my prototypes for the deck and packaging. To my surprise the deck funded within two days. I backed for a smaller amount to start, but to put it in perspective? I campaigned for my Isidore Tarot’s Second Edition, one of my more popular decks, and I think I asked for a grand and got that after half a month of hard promoting. Then to get my stretch goal I had to get obnoxious. So I’m happy this one picked up a bit quicker and surprised honestly.

The deck I finished just barely before I launched the campaign. Now I’m working on the full color companion book that I wanted to be akin to a grimoire. There is so much more in there than just card explanations. I’m also working on my stretch goal rewards and some of the big (who will actually grab this?!) perks. That all aside, I really just want to take a moment to talk about the grimoire.

I love this book! I’m not only creating a digital version of the book, I’m creating the actual book of shadows. My hubby, long ago, crafted this incredible wooden book form that can house an actual book. So I’m printing off my grimoire pages as I finish them, on really nice, aged paper and adding them to it. Tea staining, more pressed/dried flowers, personal items. I have my sketches and my mementos going into it. It’s just for me, this living copy, and it’s affecting how I design the tarot’s book pages too. It’s a nice way to be starting autumn out.

I carry a small grudge against being denied my autumn last year. Then I sat down with my gent and looked over all the stuff we did last year even with my mangled body, which included flying to Boston and getting a chance to visit with my dad and see Mrs. Obama speak, and realized we haven’t actually slowed down much at all for awhile now. Finishing up this deck is like a cherry on top of that Sundae.

Anyhoo! Cuz I love the bad word anyhoo. This is a sample from the grimoire that I’m working on. I will try to keep up with my normal entries for the site (now that traffic as gone wonderfully up) and not be completely and obnoxiously promoting my deck. But you will be seeing a lot more samples from this current project now that I’ve left soft launch phase. 🙂

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Card of the Day – The Tarot’s King of Coins

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - King of Coins

Hello my lovely card site! I have been a distracted mother. I’m so sorry my wonderful aetherweb child! But I am here, and card of the day seems a good dip back into the tarot pool.

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina’s Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes… I love that title! I really do. It simply invokes so many wonderful memories from a time in my past. That place where I would delight in autumn because I would watch Mary Poppins and Something Wicked This Way Comes. I’m not sure why these were my autumn movies as a kid, but they were. And honestly, not related to them, I would watch a variety of other movies I no longer remember the names for, though they inspired in me this vintage place where mysterious names (like a snake oil salesman slash people charmer) connected to equally mysterious (or even wickedly infamous) characters. I wanted that for myself. I wanted my own eerie mythos for autumn. With all that said, I have been stressing I’ve given the deck a nick name–the Lydia Tarot and for some, the Autumn Tarot. This card is from that deck.

So my card of the day posts will be from this deck mostly, though not exclusively. Although, confession? Been binging on Bel Canto these past many days. I will try and keep it open. 😉

So, hello! Mr. King of Coins. Is Mr. appropriate? Meh, we’ll move on.

Who is this card, this king? I want to be selfish and craft him around my zodiac sign. Let me say I find astrology fascinating for a few different reasons. In part because I am slightly nerd minded and how long standing mythical ideas and their influence on people do finding people shaping those things to their lives as an act of suggestion. After that? Simple belief.

My great grandmother was a Rosicrucian. I found this out as an older person when my aunt passed along to me all the books of hers that her grandmother had given her. At that time what I knew of my great grandmother was that she was an incredibly kind and loving person. She’d lived life from a kid with rheumatoid arthritis and only used copper bracelets to treat the pain and joint issue. If you visited her she always sent you away with something beautiful or thoughtful she’d clipped from a magazine or book. She was that elder I wish I had met. She also created astrology charts for people, which was something she created as a Christian, which was one of the first times I realized: You can be raised in a loving environment of something not quite what you’re thinking and still have rooms for your own thoughts.

What does that mean? It means that as I look upon my King of Coins and think about how I relate to being a Taurus, I can relate to this card because it says a lot of the same things to me, without quite as much of the stubborn bullishness I also know. Yet these are things of comfort, materialism, and just what makes me feel safe. As it relates to my family (as mentioned) is being surrounded by people who are providers, they made sure my world was surrounded by what I needed and made me feel safe. We always wanted better, but we realized what we had and appreciated it. I didn’t always get what I needed from my mother when it came to envisioning a prosperous and stable life. I had to look around me at those who were living that life and extending to me when they could.

So now I relate it to myself, as I tend to always do a one card draw as a thing of meditation or reflection. I look at this card and I am reminded that this is where I want to be in life. I want to be in a position to look after those around me and encourage them forward. I want to be a person who loves someone so much, and in loving them that way, is able to (sometimes) very harshly advise them on how they may be f*cking up and how to pull away from that. I think I might be obnoxious in saying this, but that for me this is the aunt towards niece card. Slowly I’ve turned into the aunt. Bittersweet.

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Instagram Giveaway

EDIT: And the winners are @whispersfrombeyond and @thedarksiren – thank you to everyone who entered and helped spread the word about my new deck. 🙂

Are you on instagram? Would you like an opportunity to win a free Lydia tarot deck? Find me at @atticcartomancy and follow the instructions to be entered into my drawing.

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes

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The Lydia Tarot Pre Order at IndieGoGo

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina’s Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes

If you’ll notice to the right there is a swanky icon announcing that a campaign for the Lydia Tarot is now going over at Indiegogo. Yays! Originally this was the time I was going to be launching a campaign for the Oracle and Flutter-byes oracle deck, but that project has been going rather slow and ultimately took the backseat to the Lydia deck, which was starting to create itself. The attention it has been getting has been wonderful! So it seemed fitting to turn my campaign intentions towards it during these wonderful autumn months. This is a soft launch for the moment. I was determined to get the campaign launched Sept 13th. To do that I had to juggle finishing the minors, keeping up with Isidore Tarot orders, and I’m working with someone to have my decks as apart of their tea and tarot subscription boxes. It’s been a bit busy and I did a lot of it in a cough syrup daze thanks to an early smack of the flu. This is me twirling in a circle singing the Wonder Woman theme song. Today I’m making my way through my sites and updating info on the deck.

I replaced all the cards on the Lydia Tarot’s page with the final, edited versions. All the typos are gone and a few of the cards have changed a little. I have a site dedicated to the deck here. Much like my Isidore Tarot there is a lot of extra stuff that goes along with this deck that I wanted to have a dedicated space for it. As we move closer to Halloween there will be more and more about this Madam Lydia and the deck she created. You know me, everything has a story. So now I bid you ah-do (proper spelling hahaha I don’t has it) as I get some stuff updated and make another trip to the post office. 🙂

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Lydia Coins for Sunday

EDIT: It is Tuesday and I’m looking at all the merch I have planned for this and all the reserve-a-deck requests, remind me list, and other things. This might be a tad bigger of a re-launch than I was planning. So I’m working on my best options here. More to come.

Tuesday will be the start of pre-ordering for my Lydia deck. I’ll also be adding some giveaways to my instagram accounts. That means I’m a little on the hectic busy side here but I think I’m keeping it all reasonably ordered. That might be a very different story in a few days. In the meantime, a few samples of the coins.

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes

Madam Lydia Wilhelminas Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Three of Coins Madam Lydia Wilhelminas Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Four of Coins Madam Lydia Wilhelminas Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Eight of Coins Madam Lydia Wilhelminas Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Nine of Coins

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The Lydia Tarot Swords

I’ve given this deck the nickname The Lydia Tarot to make the title a little less of a mouthful. This mostly comes in handy when my typo-happy fingers are trying to put all of that name into an instragram update on my phone. I think my thumbs just get a giggle out of making me look like I’m drunk texting all the time. That aside, samples of the full cups suit can be found on this deck’s page, link below. Previews of the swords suit are now going up. As for the deck itself and when it will be available again, pre-ordering for the deck will take place throughout September with delivery to begin mid October so first adopters can have it for Halloween. This is the plan for the moment. It might change if I can’t get some of the swords (the last cards I’m finishing up) to stop being so cranky. They’re giving me creation pains. I figured I would start previewing them before the other two suits so I can psyche my brain into embracing the idea of deadline. The wands and pentacles will have previews up as September progresses. So here are those first swords previews. 🙂

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Three of Swords Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Five of Swords Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Nine of Swords Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes - Ten of Swords
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Tea & Tarot Tuesday

Attic Cartomancy - Tea and Tarot Tuesday - Nine of Coins

A little Miss Emma’s Tea in my favorite bee tea cup of my aunt’s. Miss Emma’s Tea features parsley, sage, licorice root, and fennel seed. It’s a nice tea to help sooth some of the things that ail us maturing women. 😊

Pictured with it is the nine of coins from my Isidore Tarot – a good card I use to think upon my slowly growing self confidence and enjoying what has come from my hard work. At the same time it reminds me not to get frivolous and chance messing up my accomplishments with foolish decisions. 🤔

Miss Emma’s Tea is an original recipe from the Orange Moon Tea Society.

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A Dreadful Night

It’s been so hot today! The air can’t keep up. Had to tuck the laptop away for a little bit. It has cooled down to get back to blog work. Feels like a marathon re-watching of Penny Dreadful kind of night. If for no other reason than to watch and learn that wicked elegant card spreading of Vanessa’s. 🖤🕷🕸🦇
Penny Dreadful from Showtime

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The Scarlet Girl

Attic Cartomancy - Oracles and Flutter-Byes - Scarlet Girl Card

Yesterday I made my first dedicated card post for my Oracles & Flutter-Byes deck. This was for the Scarlet Girl card pictured here in its finished state. I completed the outline for the card’s information page then and better organized the info to explain how this card might be used in guided meditation. My take on an oracle deck is something that offers insightful counsel or just helps you process your thoughts. Pick a card, focus on its message and let your thoughts go. This is pretty much how I approach most of my decks when I read for myself.

Yesterday’s post featured the creative writing part of the card. Today I wanted to post the final card artwork in full and detail, with a little of the card meaning. From the companion book:

“The Scarlet Girl represents two sides of a coin: On one side is how wonderful it is to feel loved, to have someone’s adoration or devotion, to feel beautiful, and finding yourself respected. The other side of that coin is the pain that can be so deeply felt when losing any of those things, especially someone’s love. And even though it represents these feelings that are most often associated with relationships, it is not a card that asks you to think about that relationship directly or in technical terms. This card, when used for meditation, asks you to simply take a breath, close your eyes, and think honestly about how that relationship feels. Do you feel the love? Do you feel respected? Do you feel the devotion to you that you have been offering in return? And this isn’t always a question asked for a romantic relationship. Life is filled with so many different types of relationships but there will always be certain things we need for them to consist of. If not love than respect.”

There is of course more to the card notes, but that’s to be offered with the complete deck and book. I just wanted to start offering a better idea of what I’m working with and the direction I’m taking this project. More to come.

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The Scarlet Girl – The Oracles & Flutter-Bye Oracle

I’ve worked on quite a few things today. That is just the nature of my day. What has given me the most pleasure is adding to the mythology of my Orange Moon Oracle. You see, it’s a combination of the story I’ve written for it (which is simply my inspiration) and how that writing translates into how to look at the card. This is all very important to me. I’m diligently working on how to organize and streamline this whole process so it doesn’t seem wonky. My oracle deck was born in my fiction, but is rooted in my life and how that relates to simply living. So below is the introduction to my Scarlet Girl card. What comes after, which you’ll have to see with the deck itself, is how the reading of it plays out. 😉

Azure held the vibrantly colored card in her hand and found a smile playing on her lips as the Scarlet Girl winked at her. She looked up and found the face from the card standing in front of her. She was still slightly hazy and undefined, but with each moment that passed she came into sharper focus and better detail. Still, there was a subtle dreaminess to her form that refused to pass. She was neither a ghost or an illusion; she was simply a vision.

“I gave you a name when I sat down and put fresh paint to an old canvas. Something told me to use hues that can only be seen and truly experienced by taking the reddest of roses and holding them underneath the brilliant afternoon sun. There, in that moment, there are so many shades of red, scarlet, and a litany of amber and oranges. These are the rarest shades and I wanted them to be yours. Though other than seeing a name on your shoulder and a profound twinkle in your eye, I don’t think I quite know you yet. Who are you my scarlet girl? What type of oracle do you present yourself to be?

The oracle graced Azure with a very warm smile. That smile radiated towards her and wrapped itself around her like a warm embrace. She felt loved, she felt good.

“I am painted in all the shades of a fine and brilliant heart and it is the heart I represent. I am the embodiment of absolute love, devotion, and respect. I am not the action of it, but the simple and genuine feeling of it. My offering and my wisdom is to help you set aside that which gets in the way of feeling these things in their purest form. I have no prophecy. I am no such type of oracle. The absolute only thing that I can predict is that in life there is always a moment where these things, these feelings, can be taken away for one reason or another. When this is the case, I implore to embrace the feeling, weather the hurt, and know that the pain comes from having felt something so wonderful to begin with. And know there is a place beyond that hurt where the memory is what is to cherish and the pain to be let go of…”

Follow the deck creation here. Or you can better embrace the story aspect of it here. More to come.

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Madam Lydia Wilhelmina’s Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre, and Autumn Scenes Updates

As I organize my next new deck launch, I’ve gotten a few emails asking me about the status of my (such a long name darn me!) Madam Lydia Wilhelmina’s Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre, and Autumn Scenes, which has been patiently awaiting the completion of its minor arcana. Well I am slowly working away at the other suits. The cups suit is complete so I’ve started adding a few samples to the deck’s page and will do so here and there as I finish up the next suit.

One thing I’m doing with the minors is avoiding just making cards with pips on them. I’m using the Rider Waite Smith deck as a frame of reference to create my dark scenes. It’s been challenging but rather fun honestly. Like with these two first examples below: I had my reference cards but wanted to keep with the autumn and spooky themes of the deck. So with the ace of cups the theme was Thing elopes and has some lil things. I’m a huge Addams Family fan (shocker I know) and thought who would make a better floating hand? 🙂 The two of cups I titled The Newly Dead with the Long Living. The couple on the card represent two lovers separated only by the thin veil of death. The man has lived a long time and now alone misses his love, but she is always right there beside him with a caring smile on her lips, just waiting for him to join her again. They hold the cups they once exchanged with one another in life.

Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes Madam Lydia Wilhelmina's Tarot of Monsters, the Macabre and Autumn Scenes

So the deck is moving right along as I find a moment to add a new card. And yes, I still plan to offer it for Halloween. It’ll be a soft launch most likely, given how much time I will be needing for my new oracle deck. But I do have some rather wicked planning for the packaging. I’ve already ordered samples for it. Much better than the original this time around. I’m excited about it. 🙂