In 1999, I invented the Solitaire encryption algorithm, designed to manually encrypt data using a deck of cards. It was written into the plot of Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon, and I even wrote an afterward to the book describing the cipher.

I don't talk about it much, mostly because I made a dumb mistake that resulted in the algorithm not being reversible. Still, for the short message lengths you're likely to use a manual cipher for, it's still secure and will likely remain secure.