Felt puppets

These puppets are more time-consuming than the stick puppets, but will last much much longer. You will need pretty much all the material and skills outlined in the felt food post. You need to start by making a basic pattern for the puppets. I like to draw my pattern on poster board. It is sturdy, but also thin enough that I can fold it in half and make sure everything is symmetrical. For these puppets, I like to make them big enough to fit a small adult hand (like mine!). Once you have the pattern made, cut two pieces for each puppet. Get creative! I've shown 4 of mine here, but there's so much more you can do with this. I made mine mouthless. Mouths are kind of hard to do anyway, and I like how they are somewhat expressionless. It gives kids more freedom in their acting. Stitch on little details, ears, ect, then stitch everything together, leaving the bottom open of course.

You could also just glue all of this together if you don't want to sew. I prefer the sewn look, but glue will work nicely too. You also may want to choose something beside glued-on googly eyes if your child is younger.