Fun Puppet Craft

As a kid I loved puppets. I’m not quite sure why, but I was fascinated by the Muppets, and learning all the ins and outs of puppetry. Thus Princess deciding to earn the Puppetry badge for American Heritage Girls Explorer level gave me an excuse to make a marionette puppet to play with, and generally have lots of fun with a silly craft.

(there’s all sorts of affiliate links in here)

Supplies for our marionette puppet craft

2 toilet paper rolls per puppet, yarn, popsicle sticks, hot glue gun, scissors,  markers (and whatever else you want to use to decorate it)

Random extra debris in the photo is completely unrelated to the craft, but I honestly didn’t want to photo-shop it out.

Okay, I’m fairly sure I saw this somewhere. You know how you see an idea somewhere and it sticks in your head? I saw somewhere an easy marionette bird puppet, and for all I know it was back during my puppet obsession as a kid, and was looking for an excuse to create him for ages.

How to make your bird marionette puppet craft

1 Cut one of your toilet paper rolls into slightly more than half. This is going to be your bird puppet’s head, so how big do you want the head? Then cut one end into a point. Now, you’ve formed your bird puppet’s head and beak. Color away. (Every time I try to add a period after the 1, it converts it to a numbered list, technology does not like me today).

2. Color your puppet’s head, and then proceed to color the body.

3a. Cut 1 piece of yarn about a foot long for the legs.  Cut a second piece of yarn about 3-6 inches long for the neck. Then cut one piece of yarn about 6 inches long to attach the head to the control arm.  Cut two matching pieces of yarn about 18 inches long to connect the feet to the control arm, and finally cut one last piece of yarn about 9 inches long to connect the control arm to the body of the bird puppet.

3b. Poke two holes through the body for the yarn to travel through. This will be the legs. Feed the leg yarn through both holes. (I’m figuring out this is why I don’t do craft tutorials, because I don’t have the right terminology).

4. Poke a hole through the bottom of the head. If you put the “neck” yarn on the tip of the scissor as you poke it through, you save trying to force the yarn through later on. Once the yarn is through, tie a hole to keep the yarn from coming back through, and your bird puppet now has its neck started.

5. Poke the other end of the neck yarn through the top part of the body just like you created the hole in the head and tie it together, and now you’ve got the neck connected to the body.

6. Cut a popsicle stick in half. Use the hot glue gun to glue the ends of the yarn to the cut halves. Now most of the major pieces are in place, You just need to attach it all.

7. Using the hot glue gun, glue the piece of yarn to connect the head to the control arm to the roll, and then either tie, or glue the yarn to the control arm.

8. Repeat the procedure to glue the yarn to the body and the control arm.

9. Glue one of the pieces of yarn to the other end of the popsicle stick foot, and the other to the control arm on that side. Repeat with the other foot.

10. Technically your puppet is all glued together, but as I learned from the tween girls, this is still a boring puppet. Now your puppet needs bling.

This is where you pull out the random sequins, buttons, and fabric scraps and start adding fun details like wings, hair, or anything else fun.

Isn’t he cute?

To complete the puppetry badge a few videos

Now the puppetry badge doesn’t just require Explorers to make a marionette, no they also need to learn about different types of puppets around the world. To do that I turned to youtube for some fun puppet shows.

This is the first video on the AHG puppetry badge playlist, I’m not seeing how to embed the whole playlist.

And, at this point, my head is starting to hurt, and in all honesty, it feels like a lot of work to keep my eyes focused. I think I need to get to the eye doctor.

More projects we’ve used for badges at AHG

Other stuff, I’m sure I’ll come up with later. Y’all, I think I’m coming down sick. That might be why my eyeballs are hurting.

I’m back, I’ve had 3 Dr Peppers, and am thinking much more clearly.

• Colonial Games and Pastimes (our Heritage)
• Geography Fair
• Travel Journal