My nieces refer to me as Aunt Spooky. And my family? They’re still waiting for my Stevie Nicks as goth phase to pass (it hasn’t.) So I guess it should come as no surprise that I am an autumn girl who celebrates Halloween a little bit each day. A spooky, autumn themed tarot seemed natural for me. I just wasn’t sure what type of style it was going to eventually evolve into. I knew that I wanted it to be rich and lavish, colorful though dark, and I wanted each card to look like a snapshot of a scene taking place somewhere seldom seen; like a snapshot of the hidden.
I decided to use classic paintings as my palate, turning to my most favorite medium–collage. I wanted there to be something somewhat familiar with the scene, while at the same time unique. I divided my themes into three categories: One, the autumn scene. Two, a re-imaging of classic movie monsters. Three, the macabre. As I worked on a card, I also wrote notes in my journal about that card: Short stories, rituals, spells, history, and some facts I wanted to associate with the card. Eventually this became the basis for the companion grimoire I created to go along with the deck.
To date this is my most popular deck. I’m never able to keep it in stock as once I put my available decks up they’re gone. I can’t say I’m not pleased about that. Since its creation I have created three special editions of the deck. The first is a bridge size deck called The Lemons to Lemonade Lydia Edition, which was created after a mishap in ordering left me with a stockpile of off sized black tins I could not return. The two other editions were to celebrate Halloween. The first was the Halloween mini size edition and the second the Halloween dollsize edition. Each comes with their own unique packaging–both are still sold from time to time. The original bridge size deck has completely sold out.
Below are samples of the complete deck along with a preview of the grimoire. The basic deck comes with a simple companion book of brief card descriptions. The full packaging of the deck includes the grimoire-though the grimoire can be bought at any time on its own through amazon.com. All decks are sold through The Attic Shoppe Trading Co.
