So, you've been to a few SoulCollage® with Megan Menkveld workshops and have some SoulCollage® cards. What do you do with them? I keep an active deck, and put retired cards in a separate bigger box for permanent storage. At first I kept my new cards in a canvas bag like the one you see above, which are hand maid by a friend and are for sale at the MMSoul store complete with cards and sleeves and are the perfect size for SoulCollage® cards, just $12.

Once I had too many to fit in one or two bags, I had to find a new solution, which was an inexpensive box I found at a hobby shop to hold my first, official active deck. If you decide to go with a box, pick one that let's you easily draw from it for when you do card readings and will hold the number of cards you want to have in your active deck. There is no rule on the number of cards in a deck.

And of course there's electronic storage - I always take pictures of my SoulCollage® cards and keep a copy on my phone and one in the e-cloud, as they are priceless and I would hate to lose them. Whatever you do, I encourage you to keep them all somehow, somewhere.

What have you done with your cards?

​Sometimes the creativity is flowing, and I have tons of images ready to be put on their SoulCollages®, and the first few cards, or even several, practically put themselves together and I know they’ll be favorites for a while. Then as my pile of images gets smaller, I find myself wanting to keep going and use as many as possible, but the cards stop coming together as naturally. I’ve made many quick-to-be-retired SoulCollages® while in that state.
 
I’ve found that when I get to that point, I’m best to stop, put away images and partially made cards, and wait for another time, maybe after I collect more images, or when I’m in a fresh state of mind. I can always glue the cards together as originally imagined, or maybe the images will rearrange themselves in a more meaningful way. You can always retire images from your reserves, too. Thank them for being wonderful options, and then recycle or return to a SoulCollage® with Megan Menkveld workshop!

Holidays can be a hard time, as the happy family commercials start running, and we're told about all the magic we should be experiencing. Especially in the Pacific Northwest where it keeps getting darker and darker during the day, this can be draining. I've had better and worse holidays, and now I know that when good times turn not so good, or when I'm high on life, I go to SoulCollage®! It can be disguised as a regular, old art project or you can tell people that it's a key part of your self-care routine. Do it in private or in public, day or night, it's there for you. Find some scissors, glue and a 5x8 piece of something and you're on your way.

I call SoulCollage® meditation. It's an excuse for me to be focused and quiet, to ignore all the messages around me, and retreat. It's okay to need a break and to take a break when you need it! Even better is if you find others who need some SoulCollage®, and you can do it together for some healthy group time. SoulCollage® with Megan Menkveld is open, too, and you are welcome! Come as you are!