Kids absolutely love finger puppets. This is a chance for you and your kids to get creative using materials around the house. There are so many ways to make finger puppets and you can use the most expensive materials to the cheapest ones to make finger puppets. The easiest way to make finger puppets is probably to use some of your old gardening, winter or fancy gloves. Cut the fingers off at the base and this will be the basis for the size of your finger puppet bodies and make a finger puppet for each of your fingers. Sew each finger puppet on the side together, left to right and around the top of the finger. Do not sew the bottom of the pieces together since this is where your finger will need to go. However, you should probably consider hemming the bottom around the edges to give a nice finished look while being careful not to close the bottom of the pieces, otherwise you will find it difficult to fit your finger in the puppet. If your puppet is more likely to be too narrow to fit your finger, you should start over again.
Once you are done with the body of your finger puppets, you will probably want to give them interesting features or the puppets will look too boring. In order to make the dressing and adding the trimming easier, it’s best to slip your finger puppets over the end of a dowel to keep them in place. This is the best way to hold them up while you are working on each one of them. You can use lots of ways to keep the dowel from moving by sticking it into a pot filled with dirt or between your knees. Insert wax paper or parchment paper between the dowel and the finger puppet to avoid having the glue stick to the dowel in case any glue runs through the material. After this, it’s really up to you to use your creativity, imagination and talents to make your puppets interesting and alive. You can probably find lots of craft materials lying around your house that you can use to bring your finger puppets to life.
With some help from your kids, you can have them draw the face and glue beautiful beads, beans or small stones to make the eyes. Cotton can be used for the hair, beard or fur. You can either buy a cute little outfit for small dolls at your local craft store to dress up each one of your finger puppets or cut out small scraps of felt or other type of material and design to make the outfits. Pipe cleaners are great to use to make arms, legs or antennae. A bag of feathers is simply wonderful for making birds wings and tails. A bit of yarn can be glued onto a puppet for hair or just to give them a smiling face.
Add a hat for one of your finger puppets. You can buy them or make your own. If you decide to make your own, you can have your kids decorate it however they want by painting it or coloring it with markers. This will look so cute once placed on your finger puppet. Of course you can visit your local craft store to give your finger puppet a better look by adding googly eyes or silky hair. After you are done with your puppet designing and like the way they look, leave them on the dowels for a while to dry any glue or paint applied. These finger puppets will be great for kids to use for their puppet show and will not cost you a fortune to make them.