Blazing Heart Cards

02/16/2025

Hecate - Patricia Ariel

09/21/2024

I'll be vending at the PNW Witches Market this Sunday 9/22, and again for Samhain on 10/28. It's a fun little festival, and now they've made parking easier with a shuttle bus. Come by and say hello!

08/03/2024

I'm vending at Lake City Summerfest today until 4:30, and at PNW Witches' Market tomorrow. Would love to see people I know! Come say hi 🙂

06/12/2024

Just three days left to go in the kickstarter campaign for the Valmor Roaring '20s deck, a reprint of the "Old Gypsy Fortune Telling Cards" from Chicago in the 1920s/1930s. If you're interested in this historic deck, but haven't pledged yet, you still have time! But only a little. :-)
Links to the kickstarter and some deck history in the first comment.

05/27/2024

The Valmor Roaring 20's Oracle cards kickstarter is fully funded, and it's only the second week! The Early Bird discounts are available until the end of the month, so there's almost a week left to take advantage of that, and three weeks left in the campaign. If you haven't done so already, have a look and add your support to Valmor Roaring 20's Oracle. Now we know it's a sure thing!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fromtheheart/valmor-roaring-20s-oracle

05/23/2024

I want to create a set of little add-on decks to be used with a tarot or oracle deck. I (and most readers I know) have trouble with the very specific questions - Where, Who, and especially, When. So these deck would only address those questions - you'd pick a card to help illuminate other cards in your reading. It's not my idea, I've seen a few decks like this, and now I want to make my own.
I've taken a stab at what would be included in each deck - tell me what you think? Suggestions very much appreciated. Semi-related picture because facebook prefers posts with pictures, and I like this one. 🙂
Where
1. At Home
2. On Vacation
3. Nearby
4. Far away
5. With friends
6. At work
7. At a party
8. At a celebration
9. At a funeral
10. At a play
11. At a concert
12. At a talk or lecture
13. At a park
14. At a lake
15. In the garden
16. In your heart
17. In your mind
18. At sea
19. At a reunion
20. With family
21. With strangers
22. On a train
23. On a plane
24. In a car
25. In the mountains
26. In a forest
27. Blank cards for customization
When
1. Tomorrow
2. Next week
3. Next month
4. Next year
5. Within two months
6. Within three months
7. Within six months
8. This year
9. Within two years
10. Within three years
11. Within four years
12. Withing five years
13. Never
14. Soon
15. Someday
16. January
17. February
18. March
19. April
20. May
21. June
22. July
23. August
24. September
25. November
26. December
27. On a birthday
28. On an anniversary
29. Blank cards for customization

Who
1. A friend
2. A relative
3. Close family
4. An acquaintance
5. A coworker
6. A parent
7. A sibling
8. An aunt
9. An uncle
10. A cousin
11. A grandparent
12. A manager or supervisor
13. A teacher
14. A student
15. A stranger
16. A friend of a friend
17. Your spouse
18. Your child
19. Your grandchild
20. A niece or nephew
21. A partner
22. Spirit
23. A trusted advisor
24. A false friend
25. A fellow traveler
26. A pet
27. An adversary
28. A competitor
29. Blank cards for customization

05/16/2024

It's Alive!
The Kickstarter for Valmor Roaring 20's oracle cards went live this morning! Fingers crossed that all goes well :-)
This picture is of the cards and the Open Edition box. I'm excitedly waiting for the prototype of the Deluxe Edition box to get here. Pictures soon.
Come by and take a look, link in the first comment.

05/10/2024

"A new old oracle deck from Blazing Heart Cards!
I’m happy to announce that the Kickstarter for our new Valmor Roaring 20's deck is in Pre-Launch! I'm reprinting another historic deck, this time from the 1920s-1930s: the “Old Gypsy Fortune Telling Cards” from the Valmor Products Company of Chicago.
For this reprint the cards and titles, the card meanings, and the Grand Tableau layout are exact replicas of the originals. I've updated the box using other graphics created by the deck’s (probable) artist, and changed the deck's title to Valmore Roaring 20's. I don’t really want to perpetuate the “gypsy” slur, plus, nearly every oracle from that period had the same title. It gets confusing. 😊
I love these old oracle decks, and this one holds a special place in my heart. It was the first one I collected - in fact, it was among the first I'd ever seen. Oracle decks were part of a vibrant folk tradition that flourished in the late 1800s into the mid 1900s, but they aren't as well known today. My dream is to re-publish as many as I can, keeping the tradition alive.
Here’s a link to the pre-launch page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fromtheheart/valmor-roaring-20s-oracle
And for more history about the deck’s illustrator, the Valmore company, and why this deck is special, check out Blazing Heart’s Valmor 1920's page: https://www.blazingheartcards.com/copy-2-of-valmor-1920s "

03/19/2024

Wanted to share this Wilmer and Rogers Lenormand deck I just bought. From 1870. And yes, I very much plan to publish it as a Blazing Heart Replica! :-)

It’s totally thrashed but I’m ok with that, since all the images are undamaged, and I find signs of age endearing. The paper is very thin. There are no titles, but someone has written them in pencil on each card, in German. Very hard to read.

I have other decks of this type, but none have crisp illustrations. This one does, no blurriness at all. The cards are delicately colored.

It most closely matches my Wehman Bros deck, but there are a few interesting differences. I think the ship is a British Man O War, instead of the Brigantine seen on most Lenormand. At least, that’s what I think they are, I’m no expert on old ships so I’m just going off google pictures. It’s interesting that both are war ships popular with pirates.

There are no suit symbols on the court card inserts. I’ve seen a lot of variation on other decks – often the Queens have no suit signs, but the King and Knave do. In this deck there are no Knaves at all, in place of the card insert there’s an additional illustration.

Updated to identify the deck as Wilmer and Rogers, rather than Kunst-Comptoir. Thank yous to Андрій Костенко and Bill Wolf.

12/27/2023

I'm putting together a history of oracle/fortune telling cards presentation, as well as a list of cards with dates. It's interesting work but really difficult, for all kinds of reasons.

Mostly, the problems come from card’s place in society – they weren’t taken seriously, so they weren’t well documented. We trace their history through tax stamps on surviving decks, advertisements, laws regulating or forbidding gambling and fortune telling – that kind of thing. Sometime from the records and, as mentioned, advertisements from card manufacturers. And that’s where the fun really begins. 😁

Card makers stole art and designs from each other constantly, and they lied about pretty much everything. Cheerfully and freely. One deck from the early 20th century was copied by at least five other companies, and not only did they steal the art, several claimed to have worked really hard on it and patented the designs! Which they absolutely did not. Plus nearly every oracle deck, no matter the style, is titled with some combination of “Lenormand”, “Gypsy”, or “Witch” – often all three. It’s a circus. I really do mean it when I say its fun though, I thoroughly enjoy digging into all this.

The casual racism is pretty breathtaking as well, but that’s for another post. I’ll just leave you with this gem of a card box, from about 1930, Chicago.

11/29/2023

I love oracle decks. All cards, really, but it's these odd little folk magic decks that really hold my attention. And I love reprinting them as so many are forgotten and fading away.
That said, I probably need a second lifetime to reprint as many as I'd like to.

11/27/2023

I'm making journals to sell in my vintage cards site. I've created a divination journal with suggestions for card layouts, working with moon phases, and card meanings for tarot, lenormand, and playing cards, and pages formatted to make it easy to record your readings. Plus a regular lined journal. Both will have the option of several different covers.
I haven't published a book before, and wow was that a learning curve! It's taken longer than I expected but I'm really happy with the results so far. Have a look and let me know what you think!

11/22/2023

I've updated the Cards of Fortune page on my website with history notes. All wrapped up now. :-)

Years ago, I bought what I thought was an incomplete deck of very old playing cards. When I started researching the deck I discovered, to my delight, that they are actually a complete deck of fortune telling cards from the 1800s! What I thought were missing cards is actually a unique numbering syste...

11/14/2023

Just put the last of the rewards boxes in the mail! It's a great feeling, and it was much easier this time around. Shout out to Pirate Shipping, their site is easy to use and they made everything go so much smoother. I wanted to pack the boxes myself (I have a weakness for pretty paper and washi tape), but no way did I want to stand there at the post office buying postage for all those boxes! Let's not even think about figuring out customs rules for other countries. So yeah, Pirate Shipping to the rescue. :-)
Now I can start thinking about the next deck I want to publish.

11/07/2023

I'm trying to research the copyright status of a deck of cards I'd like to reprint. There's a copyright date of 1948 on the deck, and that's tricky. If they renewed in 1976 it's still under copyright, if not, it's public domain. So I'm wandering around in the Copyright Office's records - I'm really grateful they are online but there's... a lot.

I can't find the cards under any version of their title, and I can't find the company that claims the copyright anywhere for anything. It looks like they put a copyright notice on the cards but never filed it. Which would give you rights to the images today, but not in 1948.

Gah. Definitely more searching in my future. The cards are really cool though, take a look -