Today, I thought I would share my process for how I create tarot spreads, mainly ones for my Saturday Morning Tarot series. So if you are a fellow tarot reader, grab a cuppa and take some notes. I have been designing my own tarot spreads since the early 00s, when I was first learning tarot. My process has grown a lot since then. I used to think the bigger the spread, the better the answers. That's not always the case!
First, I select a theme. In Saturday Morning Tarot: Tarot Spreads For Your Inner 80's Child, I knew I wanted to focus on popular 80s cartoons from the 1980s such as Rainbow Brite, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, Strawberry Shortcake, and others. I wanted the theme to be about self-discovery and inner child work. Mainly because inner child work was "cool" at the time of printing. I observed trends via Instagram and thought, "Inner child healing would be a significant theme for the book!"
Second, I researched the cartoons. I noticed themes and lessons within the cartoons themselves. I noticed my thoughts on how the cartoon made me feel as an adult, as well as watching it as a kid. I researched by rewatching cartoons and doing searches on Google through Wikipedia and Fandom sites and various articles throughout the internet. Cartoons that I wasn't familiar with, such as Thundercats, Transformers, G.I. Joe, I watched via YouTube or Tubi. I watched a few episodes of each show and leaned heavily into my research on Google.
Third, I focused on one section of a cartoon at a time. When I was on Rainbow Brite, I watched nothing but Rainbow Brite cartoons to help me develop the spread. I did brainstorm with ChatGPT before I knew it was wrong (and have since stopped using in my process), but the spreads, I thought of their positions and the spread idea. I took Starlite, for example, and made that a self-confidence spread. I took Rainbow Brite and created a breakout from a gloomy funk spread that focused on mental health.
I decided how many cards I wanted in the spread. I concentrated on having 4 to 9 cards for varying spreads. I wanted the spread to fit on a twin-size bed (which is what I sleep in currently and where I do my own tarot readings for myself). It's why you don't see anymore cards past 9 cards in the book. I tried to stay away from 1 to 3 card spreads as I felt inner child/self-growth work required more in-depth spreads than a 1 - to - 3 - card spread.
Once I decided how many cards I wanted, I got to creating the spread's positions. I wanted to stay away from yes-and-no/tell-me-what-to-do questions and stick to a more open-ended format. I wanted people to use the questions for tarot reading and also for reflecting in their journal without cards. Some, not all, met that goal in Saturday Morning Tarot: Tarot Spreads For Your Inner 80's Child. I also wanted questions I could ask while shuffling and drawing cards, or that would give the user a theme for the reading.
After creating the questions, I went to Canva and designed using their clip art graphics, which are royalty-free and can be used freely as long as it's mixed media and not a standalone graphic. Since I could not use actual art from the cartoons themselves, because of the hurdles of copyright, I stuck to art that resembled the cartoons or had a theme of the cartoon (such as turtles for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or a woman with long, blonde hair for Lady Lovelylocks).
Saturday Morning Tarot: Tarot Spreads for Your Inner 90s Child will come with a new process in the book. Examples of certain spreads in action in my own readings. I will test one spread from each section and including my interpretation of the reading. I hope this will help novice tarot readers or casual tarot readers interpret the spreads.
Some spreads in 90s Child will be spreads I created back in the early aughts that I found in my old tarot journals. I will refine some spreads, and they will not be the exact spreads from the journal, as I focused on psychic abilities and reading people's minds with tarot back in the day (which is now a no-no).
And that, my friends, is my process on creating tarot spreads!
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