How to Create a Fortune Teller or Cootie Catcher

Fortunes can be whole sentences or just predict one thing, like a future career.

Paper fortune tellers, also known as cootie catchers, are fun time-wasters, especially when the fortunes are hilarious or unpredictable. The best thing is, fortune tellers are very easy to make, so you can keep creating new ones — and keep your friends guessing.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Scissors
• Pen or marker

Instructions

1. Grab a square sheet of paper or cut a rectangular sheet into a square. To trim a standard sheet of paper, take the bottom left corner of the paper and fold it up until it touches the long, right-hand edge of the paper. You should have a folded triangle with a thin, rectangular strip of unfolded paper above it. Carefully cut off the rectangular piece. When you unfold the paper, it should be a perfect square with a long diagonal crease down the middle.

2. Fold the paper in half again by joining the corners that are at either end of the diagonal crease you made in Step 1. Unfold the paper — you should have a square piece of paper with two creases that form an "X."

3. Take each corner and fold it towards the center, to the middle of the "X." After doing this with three of the corners, the paper should look sort of like an envelope. Once the last of the four corners is folded down, you should have a smaller square. Flip the sheet over.

4. Take the corners of this smaller square and do the same as in Step 3, folding each corner into the center until it looks like an even smaller square.

5. Fold the sheet in half so that the corners you folded down in Step 4 are on the inside of the fortune teller, concealed by the fold. Grab the long folded edge with two hands; your thumbs should be on one side of the fold and your index and middle fingers should be on the other side of the fold. Bring your hands together to push the paper into the fortune teller shape.

6. Once you have your fortune teller ready, unfold it until you have the large square you made in Step 3. Write the fortunes on the underside of each triangular flap.

   Fold the triangular flaps back into place so that you have a square again. Now write numbers, colors or other words that follow a theme on each half of each triangle. Finally, fold the fortune teller in half and write one word or number on each of the four square-shaped outside flaps.

References

• PBSKids: Prunella's Cootie Catcher Directions