Wonderland Tarot

I have always been interested in Tarot cards, and ever since I was 13 I've been learning them. I say that I have been learning them because, honestly, I can never get the hang of memorizing them. Doing actual readings is kind of an on-again off-again hobby, so I've pretty much always need to have a book on hand to check up what they mean. Despite that, I've always loved the cards themselves, especially the Rider-Waite style, and I've been collecting decks in that style ever since.I was randomly googling for something, I honestly don't even remember what, and ended up on the Amazon page for the Wonderland tarot deck. Now, this is a deck I've known about, and lusted after, for years. While I am not a big Alice fan, like I said, I am a big Rider-Waite fan as well as a fan of the illustrations Sir John Tenniel did for Alice in Wonderland, and a deck, done in an illustration style to match Sir John Tenniel with a the Rider-Waite symbols is just too perfect. But, sadly, this deck is long out of print and typically goes for over $100. A little too much for me. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the sellers on the Amazon page selling a deck for $50. I hemmed and hawed for about 10 minutes before popping it in my cart and buying it, wondering if it was even going to be worth it. Well, they came today, and yes they are so worth it.

Like the Rider-Waite deck, each of the cards are uniquely illustrated. Even the minor arcana! Something I was very pleased to see, as too often decks get away with cheating and just doing a playing card-esque style of just having the number of suits arranged fancily on the card. Besides the beautiful illustrations, the deck was brand new. It was opened, but the cards were all in order and pristine, leading me to assume that they had never been read before. It looked like they had hardly been taken out of the box.

The above is not a reading, simply a few of my favorite cards in the deck, both old favorites who's imagery I love, like Temperance, the Fool, and the 8 of swords, and cards from the Wonderland deck that I just particularly liked.

This deck has inspired me to try my hand at creating some tarot/Alice themed jewelry pieces. Maybe I will find one of those itty bitty novelty decks that you can usually find hanging around the counter of most book stores and try my hand at making some charms out of them. Maybe the good old fashioned domino pendant approach?