Origami Fortune Teller Favors

These favors are a quick and easy, but attractive and popular favor for a wedding or party. They look great on the table and, depending on what messages you put inside, can cause much hilarity or warm fuzzy glows, either of which is welcome at a wedding! I love the idea of fortune cookies but I was disappointed when I finally got to try one (we don't really have them here in the UK). I also love the Christmas crackers that we have over here in the UK. I suppose this is a bit of a cross between the two!

You can change the colour scheme and messages inside to suit your own theme, making them suitable for absolutely any party. And unlike so many DIY favors, these really are quick and simple, lending themselves to baing made in large quantities with relative ease.

You will need:

• 6x6 inch scrapbook paper to suit your party theme or color scheme
• Knife and ruler, guillotine, or pair of scissors
• Access to a computer and printer
• Vessels to hold your favors (I used a plant pot that coordinated with my color schere)

You also need to decide what you want to write inside your fortune tellers. You can choose fortunes, quotes, or anything else you like! I settled on very general quotes about love, rather than fortunes. Because these are bespoke, you can create whatever you like. So if you know you have loved ones going through a tough time you can be sensitive to that, if your crowd likes to laugh it up you can have humor or jokes, You can even use them for dinner party games such as Who Am I? and Ask Me About... ...I create these for pretty much every party I hold now (and get asked to bring them along to plenty of parties I attend as a guest as well!

But since these are for a wedding, I chose quotes about love. These ranged from the very sensible - "Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet", "Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart" - to the kind of silly - "Romance is the icing, but love is the cake", "love, like bacon, makes everything better". There is plenty of inspiration online if you are struggling. Don't panic and think that if you have 150 guests you need 150 unique quotes or fortunes. You don't! Just repeat the same ones for each table. So in reality you probably need a maximum of twelve.

Once you have your quotes, fortunes, or whatever you are using, it's time to print them on your scrapbook paper. I did this in Microsoft Word, but any word processing software will work.

Set the page size to the size of your scrapbook paper (6x6 ins). Set the margins as small as your printer can manage to maximise the space you have to use. You want to write two per page, so keep an eye on the space you are using - the 3 inch line is where you will cut your paper in two.

Add your words in a pretty font (I chose Chalk Hand Lettering Shaded from dafont.com) You can add a message from the bride and groom at the same time if you choose!

Once you have done this, print your fortunes out. Remember to set your printer for the size and weight of the paper you are using. With a copier this will usually mean using the bypass tray. Most scrapbook paper is around 150gsm (heavyweight).

After you have printed your favors, cut to size so that each sheet measures 3x6 inches. You can do this with a knife and ruler, scissors or guillotine - whatever you find most comfortable to use!

Now we need to fold the favors.

First, roll the sheet of paper from the long side to form a tube. With your thumb and forefinger, press down in the middle of the roll, squashing the tube flat under your thumb. With your other finger and thumb, make a similar squash at right angles to the first. Continue to do so along the whole length of the tube. And that is your favor complete! Pretty neat, huh?

Now, it is simply a matter of repeating the process until all of your favors are made. People will try and figure out how you folded them! Once unfolded, they are very difficult to fold back into position, meaning that people can't be sneaky and look through them before deciding which to take. A simple idea, but one with the wow factor! I hope you like them!