How to Make a Custom Reading Deck Box

I had no idea how to title this. laughing… The reading deck box pattern could be adapted to any sort of cards, of course.

Handmade Box Pattern pdf

Making your own custom reading deck box for your cards is a lot of fun. The box can be for playing cards, tarot, Lenormand, Kipper, trading cards and so on. You could even make one for cigarettes, but you may want to look at using leather for that purpose. Making the correct size of reading deck box or any box is always the same, no matter how small or large the card decks are. These are very easy to make. You will need to have some basic hand sewing skills. There are tutorials all over the web to help you out.

You can use a base made of many types of fabrics for the outside of the box. You can make the boxes using embroidery fabric, regular fabric, felt, leather and so on. It depends on what you want to do for decoration, or if you want to do any at all. If you want to dye or color it in any way, that should be part of your decision for the type of fabric or medium you use.

For the lining to make a good, stable box, I use simple craft felt. If you embroider or bead the outside, having a liner can also protect the stitches and the fold of the fabric’s seams. It also protects the cards to line the box. If you use leather, you do not need to add a lining and can skip that step.

I had a lot of the Pellon extra-firm heavyweight interfacing/stabilizer that I use for making beaded cabochons upon. It is like Lucy’s Stiff Stuff, but much cheaper. The downside is that you cannot dye it, being made of polyester and rayon. You can use thinned acrylic paint to “dye” it. Do not wash it or the colors disappear. The colors come out as a very dark tint, as you can see on the Anna.K Tarot’s box in my beadwork gallery.

You can try Sharpie art on the fabric as a design, fabric painting, dyeing, and so on. Playing with the color is rather fun. Let your imagination bloom in your design. You can add a few beads, glue on baubles, whatever you want to do. You are the artist here. Make the box your own. I am thinking of doing dot painting on the playing card box. The acrylic paint would be like a decal? I could use watercolors or dye too. Oh! Maybe Sharpies and then drop some rubbing alcohol on the dots and they bleed into a tie-dye design, or… hmmmm….

The formula for making the boxes is simple. Measure the width of the cards, add 1/4″ to that number. Measure the length/height of the cards and add 1/4″ to that number. Measure the thickness of the whole deck and 1/4″ to that number. Once you add the felt lining, you still have enough room to place or remove your cards easily from the box, but not so much room they are “knocking around” inside.

For example:
Poker-sized Playing Card Deck Dimensions
2-1/2″ wide x 3-1/2″ tall x 5/8″ thick

With the 1/4″ added, this gives the box dimensions of:
2-3/4″ wide x 3-3/4″ tall x 7/8″ thick

Note: If you are going to use a medium that does NOT use seams, there is no change to the numbers after adding the 1/4″ to the original dimensions for ease. See the diagram on the handmade box pattern pdf for how I added 1/4″ around the pattern for the easiest assembly of seamed boxes.

The pattern is very much like a playing card box without the flaps on the bottom. That part is never opened. The flaps at the top that fold in help secure and protect the deck. If you are making a fabric box, no matter if embroidered, beaded or plain, the top flap, side flaps and bottom need to be made separately and sewn together. That means adding another 1/4″ to the pieces for seam allowances like one does for a clothing pattern. I know, this is confusing. Look at the images and the pdf to get a gist of what I mean.

If you are using the extra-heavy-weight interfacing as the box’s outside itself, you do not need the seam allowances. The edges sew together on those with a blindish whipstitch. It is too thick of material for extra seam material. Look at the image of the felt-side of the inside of the box further below in this article. You can tape together your pattern without adding the seams like the black felt lining inside part. You cut it out, decorate if you wish and whipstitch the bits together as described in the assembly instructions.

The ability to customize your box makes it special for the deck and you. You will need a piece of paper, a pencil, a ruler and a good eraser. Well, I need a good eraser. laughing… I make a copy on my printer/copier once I am done so I can easily erase mistakes while drawing the decoration design. I erase, a lot, during that phase. I transfer the design to the fabric like I did with the Embroidery Sampler Stitch Books. See my article for those to see the images and my method of transferring designs onto fabric.

I put a link to my pdf for a playing card box pattern at the beginning of this article. I am learning Cartomancy right now and made a pattern. Like I said above, use the same method to redraw the pattern to the size you need for your deck of cards. Tarot, Lenormand, Kipper, etc., are not standard sizes like playing cards.

Note! Think about leaving 1/8″ “frame” in your design. It is part of that 1/4″ you first added to the measurements to do your designs if beading. Then again, you can run your designs through the “edges” of the box if you want, too. Look at the completed box to see a “contained” design. Laughing at my hand embroidering skills is allowed, I am not perfect. My heart is in the right place, which is all that counts.

The material was thin. I used a thin interfacing cut to the size of the pieces, minus the 1/4″ seam allowance. I may do that with other fabric-based boxes. I used the blind hem stitch to attach the fabric to the interfacing when I folded over the seams after attaching them in the correct areas of the box.

To put the box together, I used slip stitch, also known as ladder stitch. I made much smaller stitches putting the boxes together, 1/16″ or so. Various tutorials show 1/8″ stitches. That means gaps. Nope, I want the seams “solid”.

Note! I found first doing one short side and a third of the way towards the middle, then the other short side and finishing, you did not end up with it being whomper-jawed and uncentered (I know, not a word).

I also use quilter’s safety pins to join the corners and center to help me sew it evenly. You could sew from the center of the bottom piece to a corner, then sew the shorter side, repeating the other way to finish. Either way, it keeps it centered and much easier to ease without it not fitting together well. That is hard to describe. I hope I am making sense.

I finish the top of the box’s flaps and the top flap’s edges with embroidery thread using blanket stitch. It gives a nice finish to the edges and hides the stitching of the lining to the outside of the box.

I hope this was clearer than mud! Have fun with the pattern idea and make it your own. This is a great winter project. You can sip your favorite warm beverage and create while winter does its thing.

Have fun! Loves and hugs…