Puppets can be made from a wide variety of materials including paper bags, socks, toilet brushes, spoons, foam, fleece, wood filler, latex, paper mache and anything else you want to bring to life.
Puppets can be made out of a wide variety of materials. You are some puppet building materials to collect and be on the lookout for.
Some of the materials, such as bandanas shirt towels and socks may need to be washed. Others like plastic bottles containers will need hot water and soap. Mold will not make puppets look better.
Materials you can use to make puppets:
- Plastic soda or water bottles
- PVC pipe
- Wooden dowels
- Scrap paper especially construction paper
- Old or worn-out shirts or towels
- Bandanas
- Buttons
- Cardboard
- Popsicle sticks pipe cleaners and other wires
- Cardboard tubes especially aluminum oil tubes and toilet paper
- Tennis balls
- Old medicine bottles
Some of the tools and materials you will need to build your puppet include:
- Contact cement
- spray adhesive
- hot glue
- Scissor
- Raise
- needles and thread
- needle-nose pliers with wire cutters
- a ruler
Table of Contents
Tennis Ball Puppets
Materials:
- Tennis balls
- Sharpies or other markers
- utility knife or razor blade
Tennis ball puppets are easy to make and use, but there is one step you must do. Each tennis ball must be cut along the middle, using your knife or you or razor blade.
Make a straight cut along the center of each tennis ball. The cut should go a little more than halfway around the ball. And it is best to cut with the seams of the ball, rather than across them.
The cut serves as a mouth. Squeeze the sides of the tennis ball to make the mouth open. Release tension to make the mouth closed. If you find it difficult to open the mouth, make the cut go a little farther around the ball, but do not overdo it.
Future can be added with your Sharpies or other markers. You may be tempted to glue on buttons for eyes and ribbons for hair but I have found things glued on to round surfaces don’t tend to stay there for long. Markers may not be as Dynamic, but the features will last.
This is a fun classroom project. Give each student a tennis ball with a mouth and a few assorted markers. They can then add facial features to the tennis balls. When the students are finished, they can practice making their mouth open and close.
A good practice exercise is to divide the students into pairs. Then have each pair use the puppet to tell knock-knock jokes. Knock-knock jokes provide a simple, predictable form for learning how to synchronize mouth movement with dialogue.
Rod Puppets
Rod puppets are easy to make and leave plenty of room for creativity.
Materials:
- Tennis ball
- Utility knife or razor blade
- 16-inch length of 1/2 inch PVC pipe or wooden dowel
- Bandana
- 1 wire coat hanger
- Needle-nose pliers with wirecutter
- Two rubber bands
- Black Sharpie marker
Rod puppets are controlled from below usually by three rods. One rod controls the head and supports the body while the other two rods control the arms.
Since most rod puppets do not Bend at the waist, it’s most do not have visible legs and feet, movement is slightly more limited than a marionette. But puppet head and arm gestures can be very fluid, dramatic, and intensely meaningful. They are also easy to learn to use.
There are many different ways to make Rod puppets. The steps that follow are for a very simple version along with some ideas for how to make them more complex. Just remember the more time you spend making the puppets, the less time you have to play with them.
- Cut a 16 inch length of PVC pipe or wooden dowel
- Make a 1-inch by 1-inch X shaped cut in the tennis ball using your knife or razor blade. The first cut is easy but then all the air pressure escapes from the ball, and the second cut will be more difficult. Be careful!
- Place the bandana over the top of the PVC pipe so that it hangs over evenly in each direction.
- Slide the tennis ball over the bandana covered PVC. The x-shaped hole in the tennis ball should be firm enough to hold everything in place
- You can use the Sharpie to give the tennis ball facial features or leave the figure without a face. Convincing eyes will not make the puppet come to life nearly as well as the convincing technique.
- Cut a wire coat hanger into 2 equal lengths using the wire cutters.
- Using the pliers, make a very small loop at one end of each rod and a longer loop at the other end of the rods. The longer loops will serve as handles for the puppeteer
- To make hands, tuck of one of the rods into a corner of the bandana and secure it tightly with a rubber band. Do the same for the other hand.
To operate Your Rod puppet, one hand will hold the head stick and move the head. Your other hand will hold the two arm rods and manipulate the hands and arms. This will take practice, but soon you will be able to create life with your puppet.
Wooden Spoon Puppets
Wooden Spoons can often be found at thrift shops and yard sales. You may also find them at Dollar Stores for as little as 3 for a dollar.
Gluing google eyes or drawing eyes on the spoon along with other facial features you have created a simple Rod puppet. Yarn or pieces of fur can be glued to the top of the spoon as hair.
This is now a puppet but you may want to add a body to your spoon pop it. By wrapping a bandana or piece of cloth around the Stick of the spoon and attaching it with thread or glue you know have a little body for your puppet.
Spoon puppets are simple, but they can be a lot of fun and with imagination can be used to tell stories and engage your audience.
Sock puppets.
Sock puppets are very common and easy to make. They can be a little more detail than the rod puppets mentioned above.
To make a sock puppet, you will need:
- A sock
- Cardboard
- Duct tape
- White glue or other spray adhesive
- Googly eyes or construction paper
- Yarn or fur
- Felt
- Pom-poms
To make your sock puppet
- Turn your sock inside out.
- Trace the toe of the sock unto the cardboard. you will want a U-shape about 3 in Long. You will need two of these.
- Tape the two cardboard pieces together. Join the square ends and use the tape to make a hinge. This is your mouth plate.
- Glue just the toe edge into the hinge of the mouth plate.
- Turn the sock right side out, forming a mouth around the mouth plate. You should now be able to place your hand in the puppet and create mouth movements.
- Make yes out of construction paper, or felt and glue to your puppet. You may also use google yes if they are available.
- A pom-pom can be attached for a nose.
- Animal ears may be made from felt or construction paper and glued on.
- Yarn or fur can be used for hair.
Sock Puppets
Use your imagination and you can create some fun and interesting sock puppets.
Medicine Bottle Puppets.
Materials:
- 2 medicine bottles
- Construction paper or craft foam
- Cardboard
- Felt
- Cloth
Take two medicine bottles of the same size and tape or glue them together. Slide your fingers into the two bottles. Using your thumb as a mouth, you now have a puppet.
- Cover the bottles with construction paper or cloth to cover the labels.
- Glue two pieces of construction paper or craft foam to the ends of the bottles for eyes and add pupils with a marker, or by gluing on smaller circles of paper or foam. You could also use googly eyes. Your puppet just got fancier.
- Take your cardboard and make two U-shapes about the width of the bottles and just as long. Using duct tape, create a hinge, joining the square ends of your U’s together. This is your mouthplate.
- Take a 1 inch strip of construction paper and make a tube that fits around your thumb. Glue this to one half of your mouth plate.
- Glue your mouth plate to the medicine bottles.
- You can now slide your fingers into the eyes and move the mouth plate with your thumb.
You may wish to glue felt , construction paper or cloth inside your mouthplate and even add a tongue.
Everything is a puppet!
As you look around, you will find everything can be a puppet. My daughters once turned the plastic centers of scotch tape dispensers to make two eyes, and with felt, toilet paper tubes and cardboard made a simple, yet pretty cool puppet. They were 6 years old at the time.
