00:00 Episode Preview

00:20 Opening

00:56 Introduction

01:55 Interview Begins with Ripley Jene

02:36 The Shared Creative Journey

04:43 Group Advice and Collaboration

05:40 Building Confidence Through Sharing

06:42 From Sharing to Live Streaming

07:54 Affirmations of Abundance

08:45 The Appeal of Simple Doodles

09:55 AD – Download the Mystic Mondays App https://www.mysticmondays.com/pages/app

10:22 Channeling Childlike Creativity

11:40 Infusing Reiki into Tarot

12:53 Designing for Yourself and Others

14:06 Warmth and Growth in Community

15:19 Challenging Artistic Boundaries

17:13 Fun in Redrawing and Embracing Mistakes

18:47 Discovering Your Artistic Style

20:08 Closing Statements

21:17 End of Episode – Make Sure to Leave a Podcast Review!

21:32 End Card

Welcome to the GRACED Podcast! A space for everyday magic for your everyday life. We do this through rituals, aligning yourself to your soul’s purpose, and creating alchemy to heal our mind, body, and spirits so that you can bring in more love and joy, manifest your desires, and believe in your dreams.

Listen and watch over at graceduong.com/podcast and on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok and all the places you can find me on social media.

Now let’s dive into today’s episode.

💖 Introduction

Grace: Welcome to the GRACED Podcast, a space where we talk about everyday magic for your everyday life. Today’s guest is Ripley Jene, who happens to be one of my Create Your Deck Club students. In this episode, we’ll hear more about Ripley’s breakthrough moment on our very first mentor call, together along with her inspiration of why she wanted to create her own tarot deck.

We also talk about how Ripley shifted her identity To embrace being and becoming an illustrator, especially since she didn’t identify with being an illustrator prior to joining the Create Your Deck Club.

If you’ve ever wanted to create your own deck, check out the Create Your Deck Club and join our membership with deck creators from all over the world.

If you’re curious or even hesitant about getting started, the first step is to get going. And what better way to do that than to surround yourself with other deck creators who are on the same journey as you.

You can check out more information about the Create Your Deck Club at mysticmondays.com.

Now let’s dive into this episode.

✨ Interview Begins with Ripley Jene

Grace: Hi, Ripley. Thanks for joining me today. We’re here to talk about your experience with the Create Your Deck Club. So, I’m curious to hear what drew you to the Create Your Deck Club in the first place.

Ripley: Honestly I don’t know. I think it was just because I knew of you from your decks and I just thought, when am I ever going to have the opportunity to talk to the expert who made this amazing deck?

And signing up was like a happy accident where I didn’t know I was signing up until it said confirmed. I was like, whoa, wait, I did? I just signed up? Then that was it.

✨ The Shared Creative Journey

Grace: Yeah, that’s awesome. I remember our very first call together, and I think you were on the fence about it, but what made you say yes? Because I was hearing a lot of resistance some self doubt, and, fast forward, you’ve knocked out the 78 cards, I feel like I’ve seen a lot of growth ever since you joined the Create Your Deck Club, building your confidence, being seen on screen, because I even think that initial call And for the first few calls, your screen was off, and then it took you some time to get comfortable to start showing yourself more.

So, how has that been from that very first call we had to now?

Ripley: Ah, man. Yeah, that very first call, I definitely still was, like, in disbelief that I could make a deck, or that I was worthy of making a deck. I still didn’t even believe that I was, like, creative enough to make one. And I just trusted so much in the opportunity being presented to work alongside someone who’s made several successful decks.

It felt like a no-brainer that if I wanted to try something new that I had no idea how to do, then just work with someone who does. Know how to do it and see what happens and I liked the idea of it being like a group situation so that I wasn’t like the only one. I wasn’t going to be graded on anything and maybe I’d get inspired by other people and how they were making their decks.

Yeah, it just felt like the right thing to do.

Grace: And I’m so glad you said yes, because I feel like you’ve been such a great presence in the group, not just building your own deck and creating your images and artistry, and I feel like also just the confidence I’m seeing overall, but you’ve been such a source of light for others, so I just want to thank you for that.

Ripley: Yeah, it’s been great to see others in the shared experience of us figuring ourselves out and being creative. Yeah, it was nice to not feel alone in the process of creating the deck.

✨ Group Advice and Collaboration

Grace: Yeah, so can you tell us more about how the Create Your Deck Club has helped you with your process so far?

Ripley: It’s definitely given me a sense of a new kind of discipline because we had the monthly regular meetings, so I knew at a minimum that It would be a good idea to bring something to the meeting. So that always got my gears going okay, even if it was like the day before, I just tried to do something.

And that kind of snowballed into building up this discipline or like this desire to share or desire to work on this commitment that I made. Once I would go to the meeting and get the advice or Bounce ideas off of each other in the group. I would always leave with more motivation and inspiration to do more things with my own project and that kind of just exponentially grew over time.

✨ Building Confidence Through Sharing

Grace: That’s awesome. And you mentioned other projects. I know you’re doing a bunch of other things. How has being a part of the Create Your Deck Club influenced not just your deck project, but all of the other projects that you’re up to?

Ripley: That’s a great question. I mean, honestly, I don’t think I would be able to do all the other projects at the level that I’ve been doing them if I didn’t start with the coaching with you, because I had a breakthrough on the first call that we had together for the coaching, that it just gave me just a little bit of courage like, the fire was lit for me to just jump and try and something new, and I remember you were like, it was like pulling teeth to get me to just post in the group.

Here’s a picture of what I’m working on. And so, once I finally did that, it really kind of helped me grow the confidence to just keep sharing. And that’s what I just kept doing. And then, I started sharing as many things as I was creating. And that’s what led to where I am today. Yeah.

✨ From Sharing to Live Streaming

Grace: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like you were also taking really bold steps in sharing. You started live streaming your process in creating the cards, too, and from going to, back when we started, when you weren’t quite comfortable sharing at all, to live streaming your process, drawing the cards, I feel like that’s a really big, bold step you were taking there.

Ripley: Yeah, thanks. It was scary, so I felt like okay, if I’m gonna be scared, what is the scariest thing that I could do then? And I tried to imagine the times when I was struggling just to post in the group or show up for the meeting, and I tried to just think in that mindset okay, it’s just like a meeting.

I’m gonna have a meeting, but it’s on the internet, and I’m not gonna think about who’s showing up. I’m just gonna do my thing and let’s just do it for one hour. Let’s just start with one hour and when we hit one hour we can stop and then we could also never do this again. And I challenged myself to just do that one hour a second time and a third time and it just became a thing.

✨ Affirmations of Abundance

Grace: That’s awesome. And you’re also making an Abundance deck, is that right?

Ripley: Yeah, so part of testing out my creativity, I looked at old projects that I had never finished, and one of them was a book of affirmations that kind of helped instill a mindset of abundance. And I thought, oh as a book, it’s just like a word, the definition and the affirmation maybe I can make that into like a flash card or oracle deck.

I was like, oh this is perfect, let me just do that. And so I started doing that and of course live streaming, making the cards because that was like the hard part. So I’m not like a graphic designer, but I finished them and then I’m doing them. Super excited to get them printed and make it into a real physical thing.

✨ The Appeal of Simple Doodles

Grace: Yeah, and not only that, because we were talking about your tarot deck beforehand. You were making a tarot deck and an oracle deck about abundance. Can you tell us about the tarot deck that you’ve created and are in the process of creating and, what was the inspiration behind that?

Ripley: Oh, the inspiration really was just that there are a lot of different tarot decks out there, but I sometimes feel like I don’t enjoy looking at the artwork all the time, or at least there’s some tarot decks that I enjoy the artwork more so than others.

Like your deck for instance, like I love how colorful and bright it is, and I don’t see a lot that are like that, and I am a big fan of like simple doodles and drawings like stick figures. And I couldn’t find one. I’m sure, I want to believe that exists, but I haven’t seen a tarot deck that was made of stick figures.

And so I thought I should draw my own deck of stick figures and see how it goes. And that’s what started that.

Grace: Yeah, and I feel like your deck has such a whimsical sense of humor, because that was your intention when creating it. 

✨ Channeling Childlike Creativity

Grace: And something that we’ve talked about is having your inner child present with you during the creation process.

And I just wanted to hear from you, what has it been like, inviting your inner child to be a part of the deck creation process?

Ripley: Yeah, I think it was like during one of the coaching sessions that you encouraged us to channel our inner child and it wasn’t until I really started doing that, like sitting with myself, like what would the childlike version of myself want to see and literally put the pencil in my hand and allow myself from that mindset to draw out the characters that was really what became part of my process.

In drawing the characters, like, how can I draw this in a way that when I look at it, it doesn’t feel heavy or scary ooh, like the woo woo is gonna open the portal and all the spirits are gonna come for you through the cards like, I don’t want that, and that’s scary for a child, so what if I just looked at the cards and started laughing because they were funny?

And it just inspired joy and happiness, even for the ones, like the Devil card. I could look at it and not feel scared of how I’m drawing these cards.

✨ Infusing Reiki into Tarot

Grace: Yeah, and I feel like another thing you were inspired by that you’ve talked about is infusing Reiki symbols into your deck and drawing them onto certain cards and having them be really present in the imagery.

And so what was the inspiration behind doing that?

Ripley: Yeah I’m glad you mentioned it anyway, because I know I just talked about the Wooloo coming to get you through the cards I really wanted to take my Wreaking Master training and infuse that into the deck, and I’m still working with how I want the symbols to appear because I feel like I do want to bring a bit of mystery or mysticism like almost like an easter egg surprise that if you know what you’re looking for you’ll see it but if you are not privy to it’s still there to support you and you don’t have to worry about it’s there to do its job to help bring more healing to the experience and that’s really my intention for adding the Reiki symbols.

I thought it had to be one way but it’s been Really interesting. Experimenting with it, but the intention definitely is to bring more healing, whether you’re aware of it or not. It’s more like a surprise Easter egg kind of sign.

✨ Designing for Yourself and Others

Grace: Yeah, and I know we talked about, creating decks that we haven’t seen in the world or that we wish that we had and I know that was one of my biggest inspirations when I created the Mystic Mondays Tarot because at the time there wasn’t a lot of like modern decks out there and I really wish that I had one and I felt like if I wanted this somebody else out there probably wants this too so I’m really glad that you’re acting on instinct that you know you really want this deck and you’re creating it for you but also there’s probably a ton of people out there that also want the deck that you’re creating

Ripley: I hope so.

My favorite card out of all of them that I’ve drawn is like the Three of Cups. Maybe we could throw some b roll up. But I just love how simple and minimalist the drawings are and that’s really all I’m trying to do. What’s like the bare minimum but still very clear in what it’s communicating.

And I hadn’t seen too much of the minimalist decks out there. They’re out there and I really appreciate them, but I definitely want to see more, like how can we express the most clearest communication and know that it’s enough. It’s enough.

✨ Warmth and Growth in Community

Grace: It’s enough, yeah. So how has being a part of the Create Your Deck Club instilled feelings of enoughness, worthiness, or anything?

like that in your process? Because I know we talked about nourishment and growth, and I feel like all of those feelings are just warm, fuzzy feelings.

Ripley: There’s something really special about being humans and being a group of humans and just commiserating in our own process that we’re going through.

And also just recognizing each other, yeah, I felt that way, too. or, oh, I know what you’re going through. And that’s really been, like, my most favorite part of going to the monthly meetings, where I get to connect with other people, find out what they’re working on in their process, and just know that I’m not alone in what I’m going through, or I can relate.

to other people in this shared thing that we’re doing where we’re making something and we’re making it from nothing or like from our hearts right it’s really special to have a group it’s not just like about accountability it’s really just sharing a process together and that’s special.

✨ Challenging Artistic Boundaries

Grace: Yeah, absolutely.

And in these groups, the focus is absolutely about creating your deck, but there’s so many things that come up, like grief, or personal things that happen that happen to want to be expressed at that time, or maybe you’re expressing it through a card, and this whole process of creating your deck is super personal, and I just wanted to hear from you, like, how has your life experienced So you have a lot of experiences, been infused into your own deck.

Ripley: Actually before I started live streaming, myself drawing the cards, I noticed a lot of resistance to how I was drawing the cards, do I have to draw them in order? Does that make all the difference? And when I started live streaming, I created like a wheel with all the different cards on them. I would spin the wheel, so it would just throw something at me randomly.

The equivalent in person was like me shuffling a deck and like just taking a card out, but to create something where I gave that control away, where it wasn’t necessarily my influence of picking the cards, but the wheel, that really helped me get out of my head as to what to draw and how much time I need to spend on it.

I would really challenge myself, like, let’s do it in 10 minutes. Let’s do it in 5 minutes. Okay, it took 40 minutes to draw this card, but it’s done. It’s okay, let’s move on. I really learned how to be forgiving. with myself in the process, and also be okay with just working on it consistently.

I didn’t have to be in the mood to draw the card. I didn’t have to do it on a specific day. The sun didn’t need to be up. I didn’t need all these conditions to draw a card. It’s just here’s a card. Let’s just draw. And it taught me a lot about letting go of control of the process.

And I forget what the question was, but that was One thing that I learned that was, like, super helpful since joining the club.

✨ Fun in Redrawing and Embracing Mistakes

Grace: Yeah, I’m actually glad you mentioned that because I feel like in one of our earlier coaching calls, that’s actually something we did talk about, about, setting up some sort of morning routine or something where you dedicate an hour to the card.

And I’m glad to hear that, actually, that you’ve discovered something that works for you that doesn’t have to be, like, the perfect conditions, because in some ways, that stops us from making any effort or any progress towards our actual goal in the game. I feel like our brain can come up with a ton of excuses why not to do something.

So it could be, Oh, it’s not sunny today. So I don’t feel like doing this, or like my alarm didn’t go off and I slept through it. I don’t actually have time today. Or we can come up with so many different reasons not to do something. So I’m really glad that you’re here. You’re finding time and also you’re saying yes to yourself, ultimately, when you’re doing this.

Ripley: Yeah, and it was okay to redraw the card. There were quite a few cards that I had multiple designs of because of however I was feeling that day, even if I was feeling great that day, because I gave it another shot to just redraw the card. It was really good to give myself that space to make mistakes or to just do it over again.

It’s fine just try something else. That was, like, new for me to be okay with that and to have fun because I’m allowing myself to do it again.

✨ Discovering Your Artistic Style

Grace: Yeah, and giving yourself permission for it to not be perfect, giving yourself permission to fail even, but failure is just drawing another card, right?

Yeah. And who’s to say, this card is perfect versus that card, I feel like you find yourself throughout the process. The first time you do it, you’ll always find reasons to tweak it and et cetera, et cetera. But the beautiful thing is you can do it again, until you are comfortable with it and until you’ve found your voice within the process.

Ripley: Yeah, that’s really it. I noticed as I got closer to completing all 78 cards, I had developed a style by that time or like way of holding the pencil and like drawing. The characters, and I would look back at the early cards and be like, ugh, I need to redraw all those cards. Because I felt like my voice in my illustrations, and it’s like a happy surprise to realize, oh my gosh I’m an illustrator now.

I drew all these cards, and I found a style that I enjoy, that when I look back at my earlier stuff, I want to update them all to fit the style that I’m, like, comfortably expressing from. That’s exciting to me. And I wouldn’t have had that if I didn’t do this program.

Grace: That’s beautiful. That’s really beautiful.

✨ Closing Statements

Grace: I’m so proud of you. Yay! Yeah, I feel like there’s that. Especially if you didn’t believe you were artistic at first, or who am I to make a deck? Going from that to illustrating all 78 cards, giving yourself permission to discover your voice, to figure out how you like to hold the pen, and, giving yourself permission to draw a new card, that it doesn’t have to be perfect on the first try.

I think that’s pretty cool. Beautiful.

Ripley: Yeah, I hope if there’s anyone out there who has any inkling or like any desire to create something like that, that they see what I went through because I really feel like if I could do this, like anyone who’s human, pro human. Anyone who has any bit of a desire to be creative they can do it if they just allow themselves to.

Grace: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Ripley.

Ripley: You’re welcome. Anytime.

Grace: Okay, bye!

Ripley: Bye!

✨ End of Episode – Make Sure to Leave a Podcast Review!

Grace: Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode with Ripley and hearing about her experience as a member of the Create Your Deck Club. Check out the Create Your Deck Club and more information about it on mysticmondays.com.

Sending you grace today and every day.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode!

Remember to subscribe and check out more Grace Podcast episodes for how to apply everyday magic to your everyday life. See you next time!

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