featuring guest authors; crafting tips and projects; recipes from food editor and sleuthing sidekick Cloris McWerther; and decorating, travel, fashion, health, beauty, and finance tips from the rest of the American Woman editors.

Note: This site uses Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA - FELT PUPPETS

Star Wars puppet show

November is a month where kids are rarely in school for a full week. Between Election Day, Veteran’s Day, parent/teacher conferences, teacher convention (if you live in NJ), and Thanksgiving, chances are there won’t be a week where the kids have school a full five days.

That calls for some creativity if you don’t want your kids camped in front of the TV or computer games all day, especially since the weather is often getting miserable, and there’s less chance for playing outside.

Why not have them stage a puppet show?

Head over to your local craft store and stock up on assorted sheets of felt and a bottle of fabric glue. You might also want to pick up some sequins, pompoms, other assorted trims, and a few thin markers.

Unless the child is very young, he or she should be able to do most of the cutting, decorating, and gluing. You might have to assist younger children.

Place the child’s hand on a piece of paper, and trace around it 1/2” from the hand. Continue the tracing 1-1/2” – 2” below the wrist. Draw a line straight across to connect the tracing. Add 1-1/2” wide arms on either side for thumb and pinky.

Have the child cut out the pattern. Place the pattern over a sheet of felt and trace. Cut out the felt, then another piece.

Using the fabric glue, draw a thin line of glue close to the edge of felt around all but the straight bottom edge. Glue the front and back pieces together. Allow to dry completely. (This will be the hardest part for the kids because they’ll want to start decorating their puppets.

Once the glue is completely dry, let the kids decorate the puppets with additional pieces of felt, sequins, pompoms, fabric scraps, yarn, buttons, etc.

No comments: