Puppet Theater Kit: the "kid" puppets

Here it is--the gift I made for most of our nephews and nieces for this past Christmas. We gave each family a "puppet theater kit" which included a puppet that looked like each of the kids, two sets of clothes per puppet, three animal puppets, two felt pouches to use for the puppets and clothes, a stage curtain and a spring tension rod to hang up the curtain on any door frame in the house. My friend, Ruth, created the patterns to these puppets. She made them for her girls and they were a big hit with them. She also gave me the basic pattern for the puppet clothes, but I came up with a few different designs for them. Almost everything was made from felt. It's such an easy fabric to work with--and durable, too!

These next few posts will showcase different parts of the puppet theater kit. I hope this gives you ideas on making some of your own. I would love to make some more for having on hand when I babysit or to use at church. Can you just picture Bible character puppets to use with a children's Sunday School class? 

First up--the puppets and clothes:

These are the Lysne kid puppets. After I sewed the puppets, I used fabric paint to create their faces. Their hair was glued on the front and back. I also used fabric paint to write each kids' name on the back of their puppet. The puppets are wearing their dress-up clothes. The boys have on a collared shirt, black tie, and black belt and pants. As you'll notice below, each girl puppet has on a different fancy dress decorated with either ribbon or lace. The clothes were also sewn together, then turned over to the right side. The collars, ties, belts and accessories were glued on using tacky glue.

These are the Cuadrado kids puppets wearing their dress-up clothes. Bailey's dress is real patriotic, while Josie's dress has some gorgeous antique lace. The lace came from a thrift store find last year. Have you noticed that the girls have eyelashes while the boys just have eyebrows?:)

These are the Ledesma kid puppets who are also wearing their dress-up clothes. There are two boys in this family, so I made their hair to be different shades so that they can tell them apart. You may have noticed, too, that all the boys have the same style hair and most of the girls do too. 

When the kids want to change their puppets' clothes, they just pull them down towards the bottom of the puppet. It would be difficult to pull them up over their heads. This is one of the girl puppets play clothes. I made them all with this design, but used different colors.

This is one of the boy puppets' play clothes--a v-neck t-shirt with casual pants with a belt. I made them with different colors for variety, especially if there were two or three boys in a family.

Next up: the animal puppets