How to Make a Sock Puppet

If the mysterious "Sock Eater" has left you a pile of single socks, then let everyone make puppets one day. Puppets are a good way for children to talk about their world to adults without feeling pressure or embarrassment.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Wiggly Eyes
• Cotton Socks
• Single Socks
• 3/8-inch Dowels
• Styrofoam Balls
• Batting
• Craft Pompoms
• Fabric Glue
• Felt
• Scrap Yarn
• Cotton Swabs
• Cotton Swabs
• Plastic Drinking Cups
• Scissors
• Scissors
• Construction Paper
• Permanent Markers
• Pipe Cleaners
• Permanent markers
• Pipe cleaners

Hand Puppet

1. Save a single clean sock. The sock needs to be large enough to fit loosely over a child's hand.

2. Gather craft supplies such as construction paper, permanent marker, wiggly eyes, felt, yarn, pipe cleaners, craft glue, cotton balls or batting.

3. Place hand in sock with thumb and fingers working like a mouth.

4. Mark lightly with a marker - areas for mouth, eyes, nose, and ears.

5. Cut ears and mouth from felt and glue in marked areas with fabric glue or craft glue.

6. Glue wiggly eyes in place. However, make eyes with a black permanent marker if puppet is going to be using by small children.

7. Use yarn cut into small strings and glued to sock for hair or horse's mane.

8. Make antlers, horns, or antennas from pipe cleaners.

Stick Puppet

9. Use an adult-sized clean sock.

10. Gather craft supplies: Styrofoam balls, 3/8-inch dowel rod, plastic cups, wiggly eyes, felt, yarn, pipe cleaners, craft glue, craft pompoms, and cotton balls.

11. Push the dowel rod at an angle into the Styrofoam ball.

12. Cut four ear shapes for your puppet from felt.

13. Lay a pipe cleaner bent in half on one felt ear shape and glue the other felt ear shape on top - leaving about 1 inch of pipe cleaner sticking out of the bottom of the ear. This is what you will stick into the foam ball.

14. Place foam ball with dowel rod inside sock.

15. Glue on wiggle eyes, or draw eyes with a permanent marker.

16. Glue or draw on nose. Pompoms found in a store's craft department make cute noses.

17. Cut a small slit in the sock on the side of the head for the ears. Poke the pipe cleaner through the slit into the foam ball. Make pipe-cleaner antennas the same way.

18. Stuff the neck with batting. You will need to use enough batting to make the head stand up.

19. Cut a hole into the bottom of the plastic cup. Turn cup upside down and slide over dowel rod up inside the sock neck.

20. Move puppet by holding the cup and moving the dowel rod.

Tips & Warnings

• Stick puppets are good to use with a stage or puppet box.
• For young children, do not use any small pieces such as wiggly eyes or buttons that they can remove and place in their mouths.

on 6/11/2007 Use something rigid, like poster board or thin plastic, to make a mouth keep it's shape. Cut a slit in the sock between your thumb and fingers. Cover with fabric and attach with either hot glue or sew it on.

on 7/26/2006 When you put your puppet on your hands, make the mouth inside-out, like a hole. Then put your four fingers on top of the hole gently, and then put your thumb underneath the hole.

on 6/30/2006 Instead of cutting out a mouth, gluing it to a backing, and reassembling the puppet (as many sites recommend), just turn the sock inside out and hot glue the rigid piece to the inside of the sock where the mouth should be. No messy assemblage or sewing needed.

on 11/22/2005 If it's difficult to keep your puppet's mouth shaped with your thumb and fingers, try sewing back the corners of your puppet's mouth.

on 11/22/2005 First you get a sock, then get
wiggly eyes, fabric glue and a permanent marker. Use colorful things to decorate it
any way you want to. Now you have the perfect sock puppet.