Tutorial: Pachinko Self-Care Plan

Tutorial: Pachinko Self-Care Plan - push pin version

For anyone who was interested in seeing how I made the thingy or trying it out themselves, here's some instructions. 🙂

Unfortunately I don't have photos for each step, so let me know if the description is confusing. And please share any improvements you come up with - e.g. @Ben-RO was thinking of making a perspex one 🙂

What you’ll need:

• A4 storage box lid, or something else to use for the base (e.g. a big weetbix box cut to make a lid shape and reinforced with extra cardboard to make it stronger; or a picture frame… Anything that’s big enough, has edges that are about 1.5cm deep and is relatively sturdy)
• A packet of push pins – depends on how big your base is and what pattern you want to stick them in, but I got a pack of 60
• Something to stick the pins into – e.g. a magazine you don’t want anymore (best if it’s got a stiffer front/back), or an old Yellow Pages, or some newspaper. Make sure no one else in the house still wants it before you use it!… Maybe even corkboard if you can find it. The thickness should be about the same as the length of the push pin shaft, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit thinner.
• Some extra cardboard for the slots at the bottom
• 2 pieces of A4 paper
• 1 piece of A3 paper (or an old A4 envelope if it works for your base-size)
• Glue stick
• (optional) Hot glue gun
• (optional) Colouring pens/pencils
• (optional) Ruler
• A marble or small ball
• Something to use as a wedge – e.g. an eraser

What to do:

1. Prepare the pin-board stuff – Determine the inner dimensions of the base, and cut the magazine/yellow pages thing to fit inside. I used a small yellow pages book which was less than A4 size, so I cut off some pages from the front and the back, then trimmed them so that they could be placed together to fit within the base.
2. Glue the pin-board stuff in place – Pretty self explanatory. Make sure it’s stuck down. If you’re using something with pages, it could be a good idea to glue some of the pages together as well but isn’t necessary unless you plan to store the pachinko upside down. It might become a bit uneven/puffy - mine has this problem, but the pins in step 6 will help a little.
3. Smooth any joins in the pin-board stuff – If there’s a join between some of the backing (e.g. like my yellow pages was in two parts), then take the big piece of paper and measure it to fit over the top of the backing. Glue it in place. Layer more paper over the top as necessary without creating extra bumps.
4. Draw a background picture/pattern – Take a piece of paper, and draw whatever you want! Obviously I chose to draw a space shuttle and other space stuff. Otherwise just print one out, paint one, or make a collage from magazine pics (although try not to make it too bumpy)... Or leave it plain.
5. Glue the drawing over the top of the rest of the backing.
6. Stick some pins in! Be careful that they don't go right through the other side. You can either plan out a pattern, or stick them in at random. I decided to plan mine out and used a little ruler to measure the distances between pins. One thing to check is that there aren’t places where your marble will get stuck – see on mine the pink and blue pins on rows 3 and 7 are close to the walls so the marble can get stuck there, so that was a bit silly. If your pin-board-stuff was made out of pages then there might be some puffy areas – a pin can squish this down a bit.
7. Make the slot walls – Cut some cardboard into rectangles, whatever size suits your project (e.g. 2cm x 2cm). Optionally you may need to thicken the walls by gluing 2 sheets of cardboard together, and gluing extra paper on them so they match the background. (My extra cardboard came from a museli bar packet, so I put the paper on to hide the print). Check that they’re the right size by holding a couple in place – the marble needs to be able to fall into the slot, so make sure it can fit!
8. Glue in the slot walls – If you have a hot glue gun, use that along the edges and stick them in place one by one. If you don’t, cut some strips of paper and glue an angled join on either side to keep each wall in place. I actually left a gap between the bottom and the slot walls so that I could put the lid back on the box at the end, but that's up to you.
9. Make some self-care activity slips – Cut some paper into appropriately sized cards, and write down some activities that you like to do (e.g. anything from this giant list – whatever works for you!). Place them into the slots.
10. Angle the board – Use the wedge (e.g. eraser) to prop the board up at an angle so that the marble can roll down at a good speed.
11. Drop a marble and see how it works.
12. Take a photo (make sure it’s within the guidelines) and post it here! 😉