I remember making them with loose-leaf paper. So there were some extra steps to make the paper square. We would even go as far as to tear off the part of the loose-leaf with the holes first. But that complicated things and made it harder to get a nice square piece as an end product. And yes, we wasted lots of paper as well. 🙂

Lay the loose-leaf paper lengthwise. Take the right-bottom corner and bring it up to the top edge of the paper. Crease the paper well. Now you’re left with a small rectangular piece that you can now crease and tear off. Scissors, ha! Who needed scissors?!
You’ll now be left with a peice of paper folded into a right triangle. The 90 degree angle should be to the left. Unfold. Now fold the bottom left corner up to the top right. Crease well. Unfold. You should now have a square piece of paper with creases in the form of an X.

Fold all four corners to the center of the X. Turn the paper over so that the smooth, unfolded side is up. Fold all four corners of this “smooth” side toward the center. This is when I would pull out my pen and start writing.

If you followed the above step precisely, you should have a square piece of paper with four triangular flaps. Each flap is “split” down the middle. Not literally split, thus the quotes, but the previous folding leaves the triangle “split” into two smaller triangles. You’ll see it when you do it. 🙂 Each smaller triangle gets it’s own number…1-8.

Then lift up each flap, draw a line down the middle of it and write your fortunes within the two smaller triangles.
Close up all the flaps and turn the paper over.

Now the square flaps should be facing you. On each flap, write a color name. Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green.

Crease the paper again, half and then half again, following the lay of the square flaps and so that the triangular flaps are on the inside, square flaps on the outside. (This part is hard to verbalize but when you do it I think you’ll see what I mean). Now you’ve got your Paper Fortune Teller!

I don’t remember a rhyme… all I remember is being asked to choose a color. The color chosen would be spelled out, each letter prompting the opening and closing of the Fortune Teller. When it stopped, you’d see the numbers inside.

This is how we did it:
“Pick a color.”
“Yellow.”
“Y-E-L-L-O-W”
“Pick a number.”
“3”
“1, 2, 3”
“Pick another number”
“7”
Then you’d open up the flap that had the #7 written on it and read it’s corresponding fortune.

I don’t know about anyone else, but the more we used the Fortune Teller the more times we would ask, or be asked, to pick a number. That would help keep it fresh a little bit longer. 🙂 But it would inevitably go stale and you’d have to make another one. If you had enough foresight to do it in pencil, then all you’d have to do is erase the old fortunes and write new ones. But those 4 color pens were more fun. 🙂

And girls being girls, you always have to include some kind of mention of how many children you would have when you grew up. It was almost an unwritten rule of Paper Fortune Teller making. 🙂