Deck Protection

Grizabella

Can anyone recommend a source for silks to wrap a deck with (rather than a bag)? I'm looking for something a little smaller than a spread cloth so that the wrapped deck will then fit into a little wood box I have. I found that my spread clothes are too bulky for this combination of deck and box, but I think a silk might be a perfect fit.

Any Joann's fabrics has silk and you might even be able to get it at Walmart. It's not going to be especially inexpensive, but a yard of silk would make several small sections to wrap decks in.

You can also take a scarf that's a long rectangular one and cut it to make several smaller squares to wrap a deck in.

But why bother? Just take reasonable care of them and use your time and money to pick out another deck to buy? lol
 

agviz

Any Joann's fabrics has silk and you might even be able to get it at Walmart. It's not going to be especially inexpensive, but a yard of silk would make several small sections to wrap decks in.

You can also take a scarf that's a long rectangular one and cut it to make several smaller squares to wrap a deck in.

But why bother? Just take reasonable care of them and use your time and money to pick out another deck to buy? lol

I have a box I really like for a specific deck, but the wood is a little rough on the inside and the deck is something I want to preserve well. A bag would fit, but this deck has square corners and I worry about snags. Thus the reason for a bit of fabric to wrap the deck in.

I'd been to Jo-Ann's Fabrics which has lots of selection, but I guess I didn't care to try my hand at hemming something.

A men's silk "pocket square" and then a box

I hadn't thought of this; it sounds like a perfect fit. I'll look into that. Thanks.

And thanks everyone for your suggestions.
 

UrbanBramble

Yeah, I'm in the group with gregory and cloraspexa and nisaba. They're my tools of my trade, so to speak, so I take reasonable care of them. Reasonable means not letting the puppy chew on them or my great-grandson play with them (I gave him a deck with pretty cards but some missing, and he plays with those. He's 3 years old.) Other than that, though, I let others shuffle them if it's an in-person reading---I actually prefer them to handle the deck. And I keep them in whatever keeps them from blowing or falling all around. Right now I've a shortage of bags, so some of my bags house two decks, and my Connolly is in a tin with the Tower from the Hudes was in but the Hudes is now bunking in with the Wild Spirit. They're having a sleepover till I'm through using the Hudes tin to house the Connolly. My Touchstone is somewhere bunking in with another deck but I've forgotten which one because my Anna K needed to borrow the box.

Oh, the part about decks bunking together! I totally do that too. I have one particular bag that can fit like 3 decks, which ones are in them totally rotates based on which decks don't have a home at the moment. Also I stored my Thoth with my Haindl because I thought they might like each other's company. :)
 

magpie9

Ghosts are perfectly fine - generally they respect you and you respect them. They're like transparent flatmates who don't eat your food, don't leave the seat up and don't shuffle your decks. If one is distressed (and anger is a form of distress), then show them how to move on. Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy to share space with them.

I find my ghosts are not actually building-specific, they're specific to me. They're all either individuals I've known who have died, or ancestors, or teaching-spirits, and in one case several years ago, an individual who didn't die but was in a coma for weeks. I like to think of them all as my Imaginary Friends, and when I feel one or more of them around, I have the Warm Fuzzies. I know them all as individuals. I'm happy to have all of them around.

This house I've just moved into, in which a very ill woman died, has no ghosts. My invisible friends took only a day or two to get comfortable, and they're more comfortable now I have "their stuff" unpacked. :)

What kind of stuff do they have? Sounds fascinating !
 

Winterchild

Can anyone recommend a source for silks to wrap a deck with (rather than a bag)? I'm looking for something a little smaller than a spread cloth so that the wrapped deck will then fit into a little wood box I have. I found that my spread clothes are too bulky for this combination of deck and box, but I think a silk might be a perfect fit.

Fine cotton men's handkerchiefs work well, and they dye beautifully..very easy to do in a jam jar and they are already finished and hemmed. I don't use silk for my decks personally, because of the process... kinda like bad karma humming around my decks from suffocated silk worms... no thank you!! You can get Eco Silk, but cotton is nice... some even feels like silk :)

Try charity shops/secondhand shops/thrift shops/Op shops ... depending in which part of the world you shop!
 

nisaba

What kind of stuff do they have? Sounds fascinating !

One of them has a solid silver antique Russian Orthodox church incense-burner, a copy of the Halloween Tarot (which he presented me with in life), a Robin Wood Tarot deck just recently arrived in the household a little under two years after his death, an ornate silver spoon with a Shamanic spirit-shape worked into the handle, a machete (yes, just a plain working-blade to hack weeds with), a ritual knife that he also gave to me in life, a bear skull and a kookaburra feather. One of them has a white shawl that I keep hung from my bedhead. One of them (my paternal grandmother) has the very DNA in my body. Another female one deliberately grows the spiky-hairs on my chin and my upper lip, owns a piece of green-grey vesicular rock, and a matched set of his-and-her hand-carved Papuan fetish-figures. Another one is candlabra-obsessed, and keeps leading me to candelabra in second-hand shops. I suppose the dozen or so I've bought in their company really belong to them - I just happen to control the money and be usefully physical to a ghost who wants to shop <grin>.

I know there's more belonging to more individuals, but that is what I can think of now off the top of my head.
 

Debra

My decks are like food for my soul. It's kind of like they're on the thread that connects my spirit in the Universe and they're just kind of hanging there in between my heart and where I came from. But the cards themselves aren't needing any kind of special tending other than what I mentioned. They're just card stock, ink, and lamination. I think if I were to allow myself to fall into thinking I had to protect them and treat them as sacred objects. they wouldn't serve the purpose they're supposed to. They'd become the end all and be all---I'm not sure how to express it. But it would shift the focus onto them instead of allowing the communication between me and The Great Whatever Is Out There to flow freely using the cards as a tool of communication.

This is so beautifully conceptualized and described. Thank you.

My first deck was a birthday present in 1971. It's my main reading deck still. I tie it in a piece of thin silk scarf made for me by a friend in 1973 (the fabric is paper thin and tore, so I cut it in half). The tied deck I keep in a beautiful beaded buckskin case that Grizabella made.

The other decks I keep in their box, or whatever I can find about the right size--a plastic card case, thrift store tin, or a zipper cosmetic bag if I want to carry it with me.

Here's photos.
 

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Chimera Dust

I don't do anything very complicated. I make sure that the surfaces I'm reading on are clean, I keep my cards away from water and drinks, and I'm careful when shuffling so that they won't rip or crease if they're made of thinner cardstock. When I put them away, I either keep them in their original boxes or I have small fabric bags for them. If a deck has gilded edges or gilded anything, I'm careful when I'm putting it back into the box or shuffling it, to keep it from getting scratched.
 

ms_mai_mc

Anyhow, I just keep them from destructive things (which I don't believe includes bad spirits and evil energy from others touching them) and that's the care I take of them.[/QUOTE]

I agree with this and what the fellow from Illinois said. But you can bless them with sage if felt needed or sometimes I've done a blessing with words or prayer. I haven't lately so i will :) but i do truly feel they are blessed which is why this particular deck spoke to me when i chose to buy it
 

ms_mai_mc

Oh, the part about decks bunking together! I totally do that too. I have one particular bag that can fit like 3 decks, which ones are in them totally rotates based on which decks don't have a home at the moment. Also I stored my Thoth with my Haindl because I thought they might like each other's company. :)

My thoth wasn't fond of my current deck. I felt that for sure