Julian Jaymes
Hello all!
I've been making these I Ching oracle cards, and while the I Ching is usually NOT a card-based divination/cartomancy system, I am just a cartomancy-oriented diviner and wanted to make some cards. So I sat down with some cardstock, scissors, brush pens, and a corner trimmer, and kinda went crazy. Here's the process I went through:
You will need:
Access to internet
12 sheets of 8.5x11″ paper (preferably 15 or so, to manage in case of mess-ups)
Scissors (preferably sharp ones)
A brush pen and a matching fine line pen (or a double tip brush/fineline pen)
Optional: corner cutter punch
Here’s how you start!
First, fold your paper in half:
Then cut it along the fold line:
Then fold each of those smaller pieces in 3. This is a bit tricky; I find it best to fold it LOOSELY and then fold it accordion-style:
Cut along those fold lines. This way you get 6 small cards out of each 8.5x11″ paper:
Next you’ll pull up divination.com/iching/lookup. This website is great and lets you not only look up keywords for each of the 64 hexagrams, but shows images and gives detailed instructions for divination. Here’s the website. You just have to scroll down to look up each hexagram:
Click on #1 (you’ll go through all 64 in time):
Then you’ll copy the number, hexagram (2 trigrams), and name onto your card:
Use the fineline pen to write the number and name, and the brush pen to draw the trigrams.
Now for the long part…you’re gonna do that 64 times. Turn on some Netflix or the new Lindsey Stirling album and get comfortable.
PLEASE bear in mind that you ARE gonna screw up. A lot, at first. Be ready. Have extra paper on hand. Here’s some of my screw-ups…
Once you’ve got your cards, you can leave them like that and move on to learning the divination - http://www.divination.com/iching/lookup is a great resource for this - or you can do the optional Super Shiny Option: cutting the corners. You can get a corner cutter for $8-$15 at a craft store like Michael’s:
This is how the cards should look. You can choose a different size corner cutter if you want, but I wanted mine to look like tarot cards, so I got this size.
You can use various colors and types of cardstock. Experiment! Try other colors and pen types! I’m even working on a black-paper deck with gold lettering.
Welp, that’s it! Enjoy your project!
~Julian
I've been making these I Ching oracle cards, and while the I Ching is usually NOT a card-based divination/cartomancy system, I am just a cartomancy-oriented diviner and wanted to make some cards. So I sat down with some cardstock, scissors, brush pens, and a corner trimmer, and kinda went crazy. Here's the process I went through:
You will need:
Access to internet
12 sheets of 8.5x11″ paper (preferably 15 or so, to manage in case of mess-ups)
Scissors (preferably sharp ones)
A brush pen and a matching fine line pen (or a double tip brush/fineline pen)
Optional: corner cutter punch
Here’s how you start!
First, fold your paper in half:
Then cut it along the fold line:
Then fold each of those smaller pieces in 3. This is a bit tricky; I find it best to fold it LOOSELY and then fold it accordion-style:
Cut along those fold lines. This way you get 6 small cards out of each 8.5x11″ paper:
Next you’ll pull up divination.com/iching/lookup. This website is great and lets you not only look up keywords for each of the 64 hexagrams, but shows images and gives detailed instructions for divination. Here’s the website. You just have to scroll down to look up each hexagram:
Click on #1 (you’ll go through all 64 in time):
Then you’ll copy the number, hexagram (2 trigrams), and name onto your card:
Use the fineline pen to write the number and name, and the brush pen to draw the trigrams.
Now for the long part…you’re gonna do that 64 times. Turn on some Netflix or the new Lindsey Stirling album and get comfortable.
PLEASE bear in mind that you ARE gonna screw up. A lot, at first. Be ready. Have extra paper on hand. Here’s some of my screw-ups…
Once you’ve got your cards, you can leave them like that and move on to learning the divination - http://www.divination.com/iching/lookup is a great resource for this - or you can do the optional Super Shiny Option: cutting the corners. You can get a corner cutter for $8-$15 at a craft store like Michael’s:
This is how the cards should look. You can choose a different size corner cutter if you want, but I wanted mine to look like tarot cards, so I got this size.
You can use various colors and types of cardstock. Experiment! Try other colors and pen types! I’m even working on a black-paper deck with gold lettering.
Welp, that’s it! Enjoy your project!
~Julian
