Free Printable! Make a Post-Graduation Cootie Catcher

With summer comes a fresh crop of graduates eager to charge into their futures. But what, exactly, do those futures hold? Let our cootie catcher tell you. Remember these beloved paper toys? Make one of these for yourself or your newly minted grad. It straddles childhood and adulthood with humor and nostalgia.

To make your own cootie catcher simply download, print and fold:

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1. Trim cootie catcher at the solid line. Cootie catchers only work if made from a square.

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2. With the printed side facing you, fold in half on the dotted line. Then open and fold in half in the opposite direction. Re-open.

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3. Fold on the diagonal from corner to corner. Then open and fold on the opposite diagonal.

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4. Flip the paper over so the blank side is facing you. Take each corner and fold to the center. Once all four corners are folded in, flip over so the fortunes are facing you. Is your muscle memory taking over yet?

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5. Fold in all four corners to the center of the cootie catcher. Then fold in half.

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6. Place your thumbs and pointer fingers under the paper corners of each season and nudge out the tabs to make your cootie catcher functional.

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7. Bestow upon your grad and play by picking the season of your birthday and spelling it out letter by letter, opening and closing the cootie catcher with each letter. Then pick your major and spell out in the same way. Lift up the tab to reveal your fortune.

The future is bright for all of us, my friends.