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Customize Your Own Planchette With This DIY

by BUST Magazine

Generally, a Ouija board comes with a pretty blah planchette (the plastic thing with the hole in it that you place your fingers on to receive messages from the dead as it slides to letters across the board). Well, there’s a craft for that. Whether your vintage board came sans planchette, or you just want something a bit more pleasing to look at, download our template and you can make a new one on the cheap. 

Instructions

1. Print out our planchette design. Lay tracing paper on top of template and draw over the reversed design with pencil

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2. Cut out the template with scissors. Secure it to 3/16“-thick black foam board with fabric pins and trace. Use a very sharp X-Acto knife to cut out the shape, including center hole. Push all the way through the board as you go and try to make clean lines. 

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3. Flip tracing paper over with pencil markings down, and center design on foam planchette, pencil lines down. Draw over the lines with pencil again to transfer the lead to the foam. 

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4. Cover the pencil lines on the planchette with silver and gold paint markers, and color in details. 

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5. To create a nice edge and smooth surface along the inside of the planchette hole, cut about 17 1/2″-long strips of 1/4“-wide black matte gaffer’s tape. Place your first strip of tape starting on the top side of the planchette from inside the hole and wrapping to the backside, so that the short edge of the tape strip hangs over the top edge of the planchette hole about 1/16″. Continue wrapping strips of tape like this, slightly overlapping, so that the top side edges are all even, until you’ve created a smooth edging around the entire hole. 

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6. Cut a 2″x 2″ square of clear PVC (available at dickblick.com) and tape it to the back of the planchette over the hole. 

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7. Trace the paper planchette template onto black felt and cut out. Hot glue felt to the back of the planchette. Cut six 1/2″-felt circles and hot glue them together in stacks of two (these will help your planchette glide). Glue one stack near the pointed tip, and one near each of the curves on the back of the planchette. 

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8. Cut 14″ of 3/16“–wide black ribbon at a slight angle and hot glue it around the outside edge of the planchette to cover the foam board.

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By Callie Watts
Photographed by Amy Elizabeth
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2019 print edition of BUST Magazine. Subscribe today!

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Founded in 1993, BUST is the inclusive feminist lifestyle trailblazer offering a unique mix of humor, female-focused entertainment, uncensored personal stories, and candid reporting that tells the truth about women’s lives.

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