How to Make an Adorable Bear Finger Puppet
Updated on September 30, 2019
Finger puppets are a classic childhood toy, but they’re also a fantastic that we think everyone should try making at least once! Of course, there are plenty of different kinds of finger puppet you can make, but we’ve always adore the simple paper kind most. In this tutorial, we’ll teach you how to make a simple, adorable paper finger puppet shaped like a teddy bear! You’ll find a helpful video tutorial at the end as well.
For this project, you’ll need:
- Template
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- Cardboard
- Coloured pencils (dark and light brown, red
Step 1:
Gather your materials! These were all things we already owned or had available in our craft room, or things that we were able to pick up for affordable prices at our local crafting or dollar store.
Step 2:
Print your template! Feel free to use this very image as a guide for making your cute teddy bear shape. If you ever want to repeat this project with a differently shaped animal, there are plenty of great simple line drawings on the internet that will work as colouring outlines for paper finger puppets just like this one does.
Step 3:
Colour in your bear. We chose to give our teddy some classically colour fur, but you can fill yours in however you please! We prefer to use coloured pencils because we like that they don’t bleed through the paper, but crayons or markers will also work just as well.
Step 4:
Apply glue all over the back of your bear. You don’t have to cut the shape out yet; just make sure you primarily put glue on the back of the page where you can see the outline of the bear through the page, since this is the part that you need to stick down in the next step.
Step 5:
Place the page with your bear flat on the surface of your cardboard and smooth it so it’s free of wrinkles and stuck down well. This cardboard backing will give your puppet a little more strength so that your bear stands upright, rather than flopping backward like it might if you only use paper.
Step 6:
Cut your bear out! We waited on cutting around the shape of our bear until the paper and cardboard were glued together so that we only had to cut once, rather than twice around the same outline. This also makes for a more accurate, neater edge. Don’t forget to cut out the holes at the bottom too, or there will be nowhere for your fingers to go!
Step 7:
Put your fingers through the holes from back to front so they hold the bear up and look like its little legs. Voila, you’re done!
Find a full video tutorial for this fantastic project here!