My Own Playing Card Lenormand

Last week I finally acted on an urge I'd had for a few months - to create my own, personal Lenormand deck with a regular pack of playing cards. This is something that plenty of people have done, and it felt like a really good way to establish a special connection with a deck by putting my own "mark" on it, and in addition to work on improving my knowledge of playing card correspondences.

So after putting it off for a while, I finally snatched up a pack of two decks the other day while out on an excursion with the kids. I decided that the double pack was better because I could make one into a Lenormand, and use the other to do playing card readings Tarot-style. 

Lenormand decks only have 36 cards - just the sixes to the Aces, like a traditional piquet deck, but with the addition of the extra four six-cards. So I used my Blaue Eule deck as a reference, and went right on ahead with my Sharpie, drawing little pictures and numbering the cards from 1 to 36. I had space issues on certain cards where there wasn't much room to fit in a good image, where I had to improvise a bit, but it worked out fine, I'm happy to report. I've heard that you can also use a razor blade to scrape off extra blank surface area in the middle of the card to free up drawing space. If I create another deck in the future perhaps I'll try that, but all in all I'm happy with the final result:

Homemade Lenormand from a deck of playing cards

So what do they look like laid out in a spread? 

Line of 5 with homemade playing card Lenormand

They're easy on the eyes, clear and I've had some great readings with them thus far. If you're considering jumping into Lenormand study but aren't sure what deck to get, keep in mind that you can make your own for a very small cost ($1-$3) and the process may well help you become more familiar with the Lenormand deck style and features, which is an added plus!