paige

How to make a fortune teller.

I do not visit my neices and nephews anywhere near enoug as I should, the few times that I do I always seem to end up at a large table surrounded by scissors, paper and glue.

One of my neices, Paige loves making fortune tellers. She sent me an email the other day asking me to find her a website that would show her how to make one. Well, I thought it would better if I would make her a website instead.

I hope you like it Paige. xxx

First you get a piece of paper.

You need to make this rectangle into a square. Take the top left corner and bring it down to the bottom side. Make a nice firm crease then open it back up again.Then turn the whole page over.

Now, fold the crease the other way.

Now you have to tear or cut along the crease you just made.

I hope yours looks neater than mine. I had to tear insatead of cut as Sarah doesn't let me use the sharp scissors.. You can see that we have a square and a left over rectangle. We will not be needing the small rectangle right now.

In this picture you can see that I have made two folds. Diagonally corner to corner. After you have folded each crease you need to open it up again.

Now you need to make two more folds, firstly you fold the page in half horizontally, open back up and then vertically, and open once more. Does your page now look like mine?

Yet more folding! Take the top right hand corner and fold it towards the middle of the page. Fold it carefully, so that the corner reaches the very center. Do not unfold this one!

Now, you need to do the same for the other three corners, fold them towards the center of the page. When you have done that turn the whole page over. Don't forget to turn it over or the next bit will not make sense!

What I have done next is exactly the same as before. I have folded each four corners towards the center. Does yours look like mine?

Turn it over again, does it look like the one above? The folds have made four small squares.

We have finished all the folding! Choose four brightly coloured felt pens, I do hope that yours work better than mine.. Make a patch of colour in the middle of each squares. When we play with the fortune teller you will need to spell out the colours so make sure you pick four colours that you know how to spell!!

You will need.

A piece of paper.
Four felt pens.
A writing pen.
A pair of scissors.

Now you take your pen and write numbers, one to eight one each of the triangle shapes. Turn the square around as you write.

Now open each corner up...

..and write something under each of the numbers. What you write is up to you. It depends on who you will be playing with. If they are much smaller and weaker than you then you can write something mean. If, on the other hand they are stronger than you then I would suggest that you only write nice things! I'm going to be playing with my wife Sarah so i'll be writing only nice things..

Now, fold it back up again so that the number sides cover the writing.

Now, fold it in half so that you have two colours on each side.

This bit can be quite tricky, the above picture is showing the fortune teller from beneath. All the colours are on the top side out of view. You need to open it up a little bit so you will be able to put a finger into each opening.
Have a look at the next picture if you are having problems opening it up.

This picture shows you the fortune teller from above.

Here you can see my model has placed a thumb and a forefinger into each side of the fortune teller.

Thats it you have finished! Now you just need to know how it works!

Using both hands place a thumb and a forefinger into an opening underneath the fortune teller. Ask someone to pick a colour. As you can see my model pointed to the colour purple. That is her lucky colour as it is the same colour as the ointent that she was given by the doctor to help get rid of the mold behind her ears.

Now you have to spell the word. For each letter open the fortune teller, first one way, then the other. As my model pointed to the colour purple you need to count six times, once for each letter. As you open the fortune teller it should look something like the animated picture above. When you have finished counting leave the fortune teller half open so they can see only four of the eight numbers.

Now they have to point to a number. My model pointed to the number four. Thats her favourite number as it is the same number of toes that she has on her left foot. You need to count up to four, again opening the fortune teller half way each time.
Now the person needs to pick another number.

My model chose the number two. You need to open up the fortune teller and read what it says under the number that they picked.

I hope it was significantly more interesting making this fortune teller than it was for me making this website!

If you have any comments, maybe amusing insults for the fortune teller or perhaps you would like a different tutorial then let me know by signing the guest book below.
You can also email me by clicking the letter box.