How to Make Crafts with Brown Paper Bags

Paper bags can be used to make many crafts.

Brown paper bags can be used for more than your lunch. You can make fun and easy crafts using these bags. Try making an animal puppet using a brown lunch sack. Kids of any age will enjoy making cute animal puppets, and you will enjoy how easy it is for them. Making a frog puppet is one example of crafting with a paper bag.

Things You'll Need

• Brown paper lunch bag
• White paper
• Green construction paper
• Red construction paper
• Markers
• Glue
• Scissors

Instructions

Get Started

1. To make a frog, when you take the bag out of the pack, keep it exactly like it is; flap is flat. The flat side will be the back of the puppet. The flap on the other side of the bag is the head. The part directly under the flap is where the mouth will be.

2. Trace the body of the bag onto the green paper. Cut this out and glue it onto the paper bag. Your child can color the green paper to add clothes.

3. Cut a piece of green paper to cover the flap of the paper bag. Glue this piece to the flap. This is where you are going to make your frog's face.

4. To make the frog's eyes, draw two medium-sized circles on the white paper. Cut and glue them to the top of the flap. Using a black marker to make pupils, color two black circles inside the eyes.

5. Cut a long skinny rectangle out of the red construction paper. Wrap it around a pen and hold it for a minute. This will help curl the paper. This will be the frog's tongue. Glue it under the flap so it is sticking out of the frog's face. Draw two dots with the black marker for the frog's nose.

6. Make the frog's arms out of the green construction paper. Draw two long rectangles and cut them out. If you want, you can make the ends of the rectangle into the shape of a webbed hand. Glue these to each side of the paper bag.

Tips & Warnings

• Cut out a black dot and put it on the end of the tongue so it looks like the frog is catching a fly. You can add beads or other embellishments to your frog. For a creative touch, make clothes out of felt or construction paper and glue them to your puppet. Add darker green dots to make the frog look like he is speckled or has warts. Change up the face and you can make any animal you want out of a paper bag.

References

• DLTK's Growing Together
• Enchanted Learning