How to Make a Voodoo Doll

Making Voodoo dolls can be a lot of fun. It is an activity that elicits laughter and is food for some great and potentially therapeutic conversation among family and friends. Invariably, the stereotypical reasons as to why people make Voodoo dolls comes up, and you have an opportunity to discuss who pissed you off, hurt you, and who deserves a good hexing. What a great forum for a self-help group!

INTRODUCTION

One of the first things to consider for this activity is what type of Voodoo doll you want to make. As you can see from perusing this website, there are countless types of spirits and purposes to inspire the creative process. Here, I will present instructions for making an all-purpose Voodoo doll.

The following instructions are based on the traditional manner of constructing Voodoo dolls as done in New Orleans. Keep in mind that there are as many ways of making Voodoo dolls as are people making them! Nonetheless, here are a few basic guidelines to get you started.

WARNING! I ASSUME NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY ILLNESS, UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, DEPRESSION, CONFUSION, BAD LUCK, OR DEATH THAT MAY OCCUR AS A RESULT OF ANY ACTIVITY ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAKING OR USE OF YOUR VOODOO DOLL. This information is provided as entertainment only.

INSTRUCTIONS

STEP ONE: GATHER MATERIALS

You will need:

2 strong sticks

Spanish moss

scrap fabric cut in 2 inch strips, 2 to 3 feet long (color of your choice)

yarn that complements or contrasts fabric

string, hemp cord, or waxed thread

2 beads or buttons to use as eyes

needle and thread in a color to match or contrast your fabric

tacky glue (Goop is one of my favorite glues to use)

7 pins with heads in the following colors: red, blue, green, purple, yellow, black, white

STEP TWO: ASSEMBLE

STEP THREE: WRAP THE MOSS

Take the Spanish moss and wrap it around the sticks, starting at the middle for reinforcement, and going up around the head, down to one arm, back across to the other arm, back to the middle, and down to the bottom. If possible, use  moss that is connected together in a big enough piece to cover the sticks without breaking it apart. The idea is to wrap the doll in one continuous motion.  I find that the result is often times a stronger doll. If you break the moss apart and have to use more than one continuous piece, that is okay. However, you may have to wrap string around the moss to keep it from falling off. If you wrap tight enough, you shouldn't have to use string over the moss.

STEP FOUR: ADD FABRIC

Take your fabric strips and wrap around the moss and sticks. Make sure to leave some of the moss showing, such as on the head (for hair), at the ends of the arms, and at the bottom. Secure with tacky glue. You may want to reinforce with a couple of stitches with your needle and thread. Add your contrasting fabric, yarn, and/or ribbon.

STEP FIVE: MAKE A FACE

Take your beads or buttons and attach them with the needle and thread for eyes, or glue 2 black eyed peas to the face for eyes. Add a button or bead for the mouth. I used a plastic flower for the mouth of this one. Stick some feathers in the top of your voodoo doll's head.

STEP SIX: ADD 7 PINS

Add the seven pins and now your Voodoo doll is complete!

Symbolism of the 7 pin colors:

yellow - success

white - positive

red - power

purple - spirituality

green - money

blue - love

black - repelling negative energy

Here are some more examples of how to make a Voodoo doll:

Make a Voodoo Doll

Make your own Poppets

Voodoo Doll Patterns

Voodoo Poppets

How to Make a Businessman Voodoo Doll

Here are some other articles that may interest you:

How to Use a Voodoo Doll

How to Baptize a Voodoo Doll

The History of Voodoo Dolls

The following is from WikiHow and may or may not contain accurate information. It does not necessarily represent the views of Planet Voodoo.

How to Make a Voodoo Doll

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
How voodoo dolls became a means of casting a spell on an individual is unknown, but like ouija boards and tarot cards, they're popular outside of the spiritual traditions from which they arose. The fun thing about making voodoo dolls is that pretty much anything goes. Still, if you are interested in learning how to make a voodoo doll, here's how!

Steps

1. Gather the Things You'll Need, listed below.

2. Make a cross shape with your two sticks. Tie them together with your string. Hemp cord or waxed thread is better than regular string as they tend to be stronger.

3. Wrap the Spanish moss around the sticks, starting at the middle for reinforcement, and going up around the head, down to one arm, back across to the other arm, back to the middle, and down to the bottom. If possible, use moss that is connected together in a big enough piece to cover the sticks without breaking it apart. The idea is to wrap the doll in one continuous motion (the result is often times a stronger doll). If you break the moss apart and have to use more than one continuous piece, you may have to wrap string around the moss to keep it from falling off. If you wrap tightly enough, you shouldn't have to use string over the moss.

4. Wrap your fabric strips around the moss. Make sure to leave some of the moss showing, such as on the head (for hair), at the ends of the arms, and at the bottom. Secure with tacky glue. You may want to reinforce with a couple of stitches with your needle and thread.

5. Make a face. Attach beads with the needle and thread for eyes, or glue 2 black eyed peas to the face for eyes. Add a button or bead for the mouth.

6. Dress your voodoo doll. This step is entirely optional, but perhaps you'll get a feeling for who the doll represents, what they want to wear, whether they are male or female, and what types of items they want to carry, such as a mojo pouch or gris gris bag. Remember that a voodoo doll is supposed to symbolize a real person or a spirit. Sometimes they are made to look like a person you know, in which case you should have some hair or a piece of clothing, a picture, or other personal item that belongs to that person in order to charge the doll with that person's energy.

Modern Voodoo Doll

1. Print the photo as large as possible on a sheet of photo transfer paper.

2.  Transfer the image onto ironed white fabric, following the instructions that came with the photo transfer paper.

3. Cut around the person's shape, leaving a seam.

4. Cut the same shape out of a second piece of fabric, which will form the back of your doll.

5. Sew the shapes with the right sides facing together. Leave a hole near the center for stuffing. Cut off excess fabric when you have finished. Cut small notches at armpits, crotch, and fingers being careful not to cut the thread. You may want to sew the upper half of the doll first, stuff, sew the rest, and stuff again.

6. Turn the doll inside out carefully. You may need to use a pencil to push the fingers out.

7. Stuff the doll with fabric scraps, yarn, cotton, or any stuffing material.

8. Sew the stuffing hole closed.

Tips

• If there's any text or graphics on the picture (such as on the person's shirt) remember to reverse the image horizontally before you print so that it shows up normally later when it's on the doll. Alternatively, you can cut out a heart from red fabric to cover that section on the doll.

• Add pins. Voodoo practitioners use dolls primarily for boring positive things like healing people or sparking romance. If you harm your boss out of spite, karma dictates that the consequences for you will be worse.

Warnings

• Voodoo is a sacred spiritual path; respect the roots of the arts you practice.

• Don't do this kind of thing in front of people you do not trust or know well, it is frowned upon in many places.

• Spanish moss is often infested with red bugs and other small parasites. Inspect it very carefully before handling.

Don't harm a person unless you want to deal with the pain you caused them later this is a form of black magic. Black Magic harms the victim as well as the user for example if you kill the victim you will die later so be careful however if you are or were knowing of this and want to harm the victim that is fine just remember what goes around comes around.

Sources and Citations

• MysticVoodoo.com - Original source of New Orleans doll instructions, shared with permission by Denise Alvarado.

• JPG Magazine - Original source of modern doll instructions, shared with permission by Lauren Smith.

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

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