About Creative’s Sanctuary

Creative’s Sanctuary is a free online oracle deck for designers, illustrators, writers and anyone who makes things. Each of its 52 hand-drawn cards gives a piece of advice the way a cheeky friend would: half joke, half real. Draw a single card for the day, or a three-card reading: the mess, the nudge and the next bit.

The cards come in four suits of thirteen: Earth, Fire, Water, Air. Made by Izgi Uygur Studio.

See all 52 cards

Earth

• Grounded: Come down from there, your tea’s going cold.
• Passage: Don’t know where you’re going? Nobody does, honestly. Nice hat though, keep walking.
• Spine: Unclench your jaw. Shoulders too. Yes, I can see you from here.
• Foundation: The dull bit you keep skipping? Yeah, that’s the bit holding everything up. Sorry.
• Craft: You’re going to make a lot of ugly pots first. Everybody did. Mine were hideous.
• Burial: Oh love, that project’s dead. Has been since March. Say something nice and let’s go get a drink.
• Sanctuary: You’re a small dragon, that desk is your hoard, and the door has a lock for a reason.
• Patience: It’ll get here when it gets here, which I’m told is exactly what the skeleton at the bus stop said.
• Rest: Go to bed, you ridiculous creature.
• Routine: Same desk, same hour, same sad little tea, every day, until one morning something good is just sitting there like it was always going to be.
• Harvest: I’ll make you a deal: finish one thing, any thing, the smallest thing, and I’ll stop bringing up the other eight.
• Compost: Somewhere under last year’s worst drawing, next year’s best one is having a lovely time in the muck.
• Price: Nobody ever had “very reasonably priced” carved on their headstone.

Fire

• Passion: Careful, that thing you love is going to cost you money, sleep and at least one relationship. Worth it? Probably. Hold on tight.
• Spark: Write it down now. You think you’ll remember. You won’t, you never do, that’s how we lost the last one.
• Courage: Just post it. Most people are too busy wondering if their own thing is stupid.
• Envy: Go on, be jealous for a minute, I won’t tell. Now, what exactly did they do that you fancy doing?
• Ambition: Go for the ridiculous one. Worst case you fall in the sea, and you can swim, can’t you? ...Can’t you?
• Desire: You want it, it’s written all over your face. Stop acting cool, cool never got anybody anything.
• Rejection: They said no. Rude. Stick it on the pile with the others and send the next one before lunch.
• Audacity: Somebody far less good than you applied for it this morning without blinking. Just so you know.
• Momentum: Keep going. It’s ugly, but it’s got legs.
• Deadline: Thank god for Friday, or you’d never finish anything in your life.
• Burnout: You smell a bit like toast, my friend, and I say this with love: stop.
• Ego: Yes, yes, a genius, we’ve all heard, now would the genius like to open the file?
• Rage: Furious? Oh good. Bring that over here and point it at something.

Water

• Flow: Shh. It’s working. Don’t look at it directly, don’t tell anyone, and do not check your phone.
• Intuition: You already know which one. You’re only asking me so you’ve got someone to blame.
• Drift: Nothing’s happening this week? Fine. Be a jellyfish. No bones, no plans, lovely.
• Block: You keep dropping the same bucket down the same well. Have you tried, I don’t know, a different well?
• Feedback: Some of that was true and you hate it. Fine. Kick something soft, then go and fix the true part.
• Tears: A little cry in the loo and then back to it, like a professional.
• Comparison: You’re comparing your Tuesday to their best day of the year again, aren’t you.
• Overflow: Crying over a typeface isn’t too much. It’s the right amount, and it’s why I’d hire you.
• Doubt: Funny how the actual frauds never lie awake wondering.
• Compassion: Oi. That’s my friend you’re talking to.
• Dreams: Pen by the bed tonight; your sleeping brain is a weirdo and I want to know what it’s up to.
• Empathy: Who’s it for? (If you say “everyone” I’m leaving.)
• Help: You’d rather drown than wave, wouldn’t you. Wave, you idiot.

Air

• Breathe: Big breath in. Bigger one out. See, nothing’s on fire. Well, nothing important.
• Clarity: What is it? No, what is it really. Yes, that.
• Overthinking: You’ve planned it beautifully. Shall we try doing it, as a treat?
• Wonder: When did something last make you go “huh”? Go and find another one of those.
• Perspective: From the moon nobody can tell the logo’s two pixels off, which is a great comfort and absolutely no excuse.
• Distraction: Forty tabs, and which one did you come in for?
• Lightness: What’s the silliest version of this? Make that one, just to see my face.
• Silence: You could just... not post that one.
• Voice: The line you nearly deleted is the one I wanted.
• Detachment: It’s out, it’s theirs now, wave nicely and do not, I’m begging you, read the comments.
• Theft: Steal from one person and you’re a thief; steal from forty and you’ve got a style. Say thank you either way.
• Jargon: Read your artist statement to your nan and watch her face.
• Witness: Let the mean friend see it first. If it survives her, it survives anything.