Felt Puppet Making Kits: Top 8 Kids Craft & Sewing Sets

best-felt-puppet-making-kit-for-kids-diy-puppet-set

Puppets are children’s toys that will never go out of fashion — Jim Hensen should say so!

First thing first — your little puppeteer needs a puppet to play with!

(TIP: DIY puppet making with kids should always be adult-supervised.)

Once your custom creation is complete, kiddo can enjoy puppet play alone or with friends, adapting everyday situations with the magnificent ideas your kiddo comes up with.

Watch as they write a kid-original screenplay full of daydream wonder and imagination magic.

First time felt crafting? Don’t worry — it’s easier than you think. We’ll take a look at the best DIY puppet kits to buy for your children. Everything included and all things considered, so you’re ready to stitch, sew, string, and glue your puppet your way!

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Top 8 Kids’ Felt Puppet Making Sets

For busy parents, here’s your fast-track to DIY puppet making with your kids in no time:

  • (01) Watinc Felt Hand Puppet Making Kit (6-Pack)
  • (02) CiyvoLyeen Felt Plush Animal Sewing Kit (12-Pack)
  • (03) Clara & Macy Eco-Friendly Finger Puppets Craft Sewing Set (3-Pack)
  • (04) Creativity for Kids “My First Fun Shapes” Toddler Travel Felt Board (Open-Ended)
  • (05) Klutz Mini Felt Plush Craft Sewing Kit (12- to 18-Pack)
  • (06) Craft-tastic Fox, Bunny, Mouse Felt Plush Doll Craft Kit (1-Pack)
  • (07) Axel Adventures Sea Animals Kids’ Felt Craft Puppet Set (10-Pack)
  • (08) Craftorama Fairytale Friends & Animals DIY Felt Plush Kit For Kids (8-Pack)

(01) Watinc Felt Hand Puppet Making Kit (6-Pack)

Watinc on Amazon

This kit comes with 6 hand puppet bodies, with a smooth shape and 6 groups of accessories: hands and feet, crests and eyes, ears or horns, teeth and tongue, noses, and faces. It also contains a set of googly eyes, colorful felt scraps, and pompoms for decorating. It is ideal if you do not want your children to use scissors, suitable for younger children, where they only have to join (glue) the pieces and assemble an animal.

It is perfect to begin to differentiate the animals by characteristics, those with horns, those with crests, and those with long tongues. Besides, it gives your the ability to interact with the children, asking them questions, about if you would put a crest or a horn on a hen? What does a hen sound like? What color do you think a hen is according to the puppets we have?

If your children are a little older and can differentiate fiction from reality, they can create new species of animals, and tell a story mixing real and invented situations. The creative capacity is exploited a lot when we ask them to imagine strange situations or out of what they are used to in their daily life.

(02) CiyvoLyeen Felt Plush Animal Sewing Kit (12-Pack)

CiyvoLyeen on Amazon

This set comes with 12 kits for making stuffed animal puppets. It comes with the figures pre-cut and with a guide to be sewn (so you will have to sew the pieces with a plastic needle that is already included, as well as the thread). Ideal for children from 5 years old because all the elements are safe and require very little strict supervision.

It will allow practicing fine motor skills to sew the animals, and gross motor skills to glue the accessories that already come in self-adhesive format.

Ideal for encouraging concentration due to the need for sewing.

(03) Clara & Macy Eco-Friendly Finger Puppets Craft Sewing Set (3-Pack)

Clara & Macy on Etsy

This minimalist set is perfect for beginners to practice basic knitting for both adults and children.

The kit includes: deluxe wool felt, cotton on wooden spools, stuffing, a needle, a pattern, and complete instructions for creating finger puppets.

If you like eco-responsible materials, this firm is very committed to it, and both the felt and the type of felt to make the animals, are with reclaimed raw materials.

(04) Creativity for Kids “My First Fun Shapes” Toddler Travel Felt Board (Open-Ended)

Creativity for Kids on Amazon

This felt board is an excellent idea if you don’t want to cut or use glue, plus it would be suitable for early ages, from 3 years old. The kit includes a felt board, more than 100 pre-cut felt pieces, movable eyes, mini pompoms, instructions, a storage bag, and ideas.

It is a box that allows easy transport anywhere, ideal for traveling with children, with a chalkboard style layer where you can overlap pieces of felt and accessories to create many shapes.

This type of kit allows children to work on fine and gross motor skills, as well as imagination because it is not segmented into a type or category, but you can create from animals to houses or buildings. All in a flat, one-dimensional format.

(05) Klutz Mini Felt Plush Craft Sewing Kit (12- to 18-Pack)

Klutz on Amazon

These kits are more oriented to children from 8 years old because previous experience is needed for sewing and detail in the creation of the felt dolls.

It is ideal for children who are beginning to be curious about creating figures on a small scale since they must have stuffing, and are appreciated in three-dimensional format.

(06) Craft-tastic Fox, Bunny, Mouse Felt Plush Doll Craft Kit (1-Pack)

Craft-tastic on Amazon

If you are looking for a kit to make a felt bunny, this is an ideal choice. For children ages 5 and up, it comes with everything you need to recreate a stuffed felt bunny with different accessories.

Very safe to sew since it comes with pre-drilled holes.

It comes with a carrying bag which makes it a perfect set for travel, sewing institutions, and how to combine the accessories for assembly.

(07) Axel Adventures Sea Animals Kids’ Felt Craft Puppet Set (10-Pack)

Axel Adventures on Etsy

This kit contains 10 marine animals to turn into finger puppets. Ideal for children from 4 years old.

The figures come pre-cut in a sew-ready pattern, which represents an easy way for them to join the pieces.

The accessories for the face must be glued and already comes in a self-adhesive format. The sizes of the figures vary between 4 and 8 cm and boost body-to-brain development of fine and gross motor skills.

(08) Craftorama Fairytale Friends & Animals DIY Felt Plush Kit For Kids (8-Pack)

Craftorama on Amazon

This kit is perfect for children from 8 years old. It contains a box with instructions in a very colorful format and easy-to-follow steps to create very cute jungle animals DIY with friends.

The interesting thing about this kit is the different plastic needles it comes with that adapt to the ages and hands of children, plus it includes everything you need, such as scissors with a safety tip.

It allows not only to practice fine and gross motor skills but also reading and concentration in following the instructions in the manual.

It is a more complex set, where there is a lot of detail in the pieces, so it is more focused on fun afternoons for older children and even adults who love to create figures with felt.

Benefits of puppet play for children

Studies show that puppets are a playful-educational tool, which has a positive impact on the development and growth of children from an early age — even before baby can handle a puppet on their own.

Through the use of puppets, we stimulate the attention span and concentration of our children in a playful and fun way — helping the development of their sensory stimulation and improving motor coordination. This is due, among others, to the fact that by putting the puppet in motion, our child can work on his more precise motor skills with his hands and fingers, while remaining attentive to the puppet, thus working on his hand-eye coordination.

On the other hand, the puppets will allow us to stage some situations of everyday life of children, and sometimes this resource can become a facilitator through which the child can express their ideas, thoughts, feelings…

Puppets are such a wide resource that they can be used by children, adults, or teachers— jointly or individually for play or as a way to explain a situation or story.

What types of felt puppet-making kits can you buy?

There are many types of puppets, but among the most popular and suitable for different ages of children, we have:

Finger puppets

It is the smallest of the puppets still offering full-scale hands-on ability and is embodied in a single finger puppet, which gives the figure a single movement, that is, the movement of the phalanges.

Hand puppets

Are those that are placed in the hand like a glove. It is also known as a “glove puppet”. To move it, simply insert the index finger into the head of the puppet and the middle finger and thumb into the arms. Colorful hand puppets are the simplest, most practical, economical, and pedagogically suitable for use.

String puppets

They are also called “marionettes”. They are full-bodied puppets, fully articulated. The different parts of the body are handled via threads that are joined together. The person who handles it does it from above.

Plush puppets

This type of puppet is like a stuffed animal. Some have a central interior opening where you can put your hand to articulate the movement of the arms with the thumb and little finger and the head with the index, central and annular fingers. Some are just basic plush toys (no place for your hand or finger at all).

What is included in most felt puppet-making sets?

Some sets include the pre-cut felt figures, accessories, and decorations for the puppets, the scissors, and even the needles and threads or glue adhesive to make them.

Other sets focused on making hand puppets come with all the accessories for assembly, such as pompoms, eyes, and buttons — but do not usually come with scissors or glue, although some of the pieces are self-adhesive, probably if we opt for that type, we should buy additional glue for fabric.

Specialized sets include a bundle of pipe cleaners, pompons, foam, or paper craft pieces in a variety of colors — or those wiggly googly eyes you stick on.

It will always be advisable to read all the descriptions of the puppet sets available in the market to make sure that they have the complete materials, but as a general rule, if we want to assemble puppets at home, we must have scissors and hot melt glue.

How to make felt hand puppets with your kids (step-by-step instructions)

To get down to work with our children and spend a fun afternoon, making puppets will be an ideal plan. Here are the general steps you should take into account regardless of the kit you buy.

1. Set up your craft station

Place all the materials on a table, which is comfortable in height for both the child and parent, the idea is to have fun at all times. Separate the materials of the puppet by category, for example, the body parts on one side, the accessories for the face on another, the scissors, glue, threads, and needles in another segment, and the details (if the kit comes with them) such as markers, glitter, pompoms, ribbons, and other decorative items on another side.

2. Start with the biggest / easiest part

We will always start by assembling the body (there are kits where it is already assembled), but many of them come pre-cut just to glue or sew. Here it will depend on the age of the child if he/she manipulates the glue or the needles, always under supervision, although in general, they are very safe.

3. Decorate to your heart’s content

After that, we will begin to shape the face. Let’s imagine it is a jungle animal kit, and we already have all the bodies of the felt animals assembled. We begin to glue the eyes of the animal if it has them or draw them if not, place the ears and make the mouth.

Then, we glue or sew the accessories, for example, the fur of the lion or the long tongue of a snake. Imagination runs wild in this segment, and whether it comes in a custom puppet kit or you want to finish at home, the options are varied.

4. Let the puppet play begin

In the end, we will sit down in a comfortable place and ask our children to try the puppets in their hands. It will depend if we made them glove-shaped or just for the fingers, after that if we continue in the role of the animals, a very funny jungle theater show will start.

Cheers to your next creatively educational puppet project — the perfect gift for crafty storytellers!

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