What to do, what to do, what to do, what to do!

Spiral Tarot (US Games 1997)

I just bought this deck recently, the Spiral Tarot by Kay Steventon (US Games 1997). I really love the artwork, but I'm not convinced about those purple and white borders, particularly with the red and white inner borders. Odd.  I'm just going to conduct a small experiment here and try cropping the scanned image:

Okay, imagine them with the corners rounded. The left one has the red and white inner borders intact. The right one (imagine corners rounded to remove the tiny bits of red and white) has all borders removed. I would leave the titles on all of them, I think. Well. We might as well just look at it without the title:

Now, imagine that one to the left there with its corners rounded, so there's no red or white or title or anything. The cards would definitely be on the small side, because for a tarot this deck is already fairly compact. But small can be good. I am really quite tempted to get the scissors out and start whacking. Wait a minute, though. What might the card itself be saying here. I've drawn 5 of Cups and haven't even looked at it yet, just got distracted by the borders and starting thinking about mutilating the poor thing without even giving it a chance. I wonder what the deck itself would have to say if I asked if I should crop it. I have never thought of doing that before! First of all, the 5 of Cups is about ignoring good things and being overwhelmed by bad things. I don't think I'm necessarily doing that, because I've decided that I quite like this deck and feel it will become a firm favourite. However, it could be that I am being a little hasty in thinking about cropping it having only used it for one reading previously and having only owned it for about two weeks. 

Okay, three-card draw. 'How do you feel about being cropped of these purple and white borders?'

Oooh, cheeky. Could be hell, could be heaven, just depends on your 'vision'. Smart aleck! Or maybe it's 'Some of us hate it, some of us love it, some of us couldn't give a toss (so we're turning our backs).'  Ha.

The thing about this deck is, when you pull one card and look at it, or when you are fanning through the deck looking at as a whole, the purple and white cloud borders are SO unappealing. But when you lay out a spread, you don't even notice them. The card images pop out, the borders push back. I mean, look at that line of three. Click on it so it enlarges. Do the borders bother you? They don't bother me. And yet, looking at that single image at the top, they do. 

Okay, the borders live to see another day. I wonder if I can make it through the week without trimming them.