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It has been craft central in our household lately (the kitchen no longer resembles a kitchen!), and themed lollipop stick puppets have been all the rage. We have not only made an under the sea backdrop, mermaid, jellyfish and octopus, but also a space backdrop with an accompanying rocket and astronaut - check us out! Keep reading to see how we made and used them, so that you can create your very own puppets too.
Big Bee is very much into her crafting at the moment and she recently requested that we make a rocket, this was then swiftly followed by a request to make her as an astronaut, and then the moon had to feature too (the moon has been a firm favourite of hers from before I can remember!). So off I went to our craft and recycling boxes to see what we could rustle up - I had accepted the challenge from my three year old. See below what we needed for each and how we made them.
To Infinity and Beyond - what you will need and the process:
Backdrop:
Black card
Glue stick
Glitter
Yellow, white, blue and green paint
Paintbrush
Star and round shaped sponges (either pre-bought or cut from an old sponge)
- Apply paint to your sponges and/or paintbrush to make the Earth, moon and the stars. You could add other planets if you so wished.
- Add glue to where you would like to apply glitter. Whilst wet, sprinkle glitter over the glue (image 1A, below) and once dry pour back any residual glitter back into the pot for next time.
Astronaut:
Goggly eyes
Glue
Glue gun
Yellow card
Black, yellow, blue and red felt
Lollisticks x3
White pipe cleaner
Black biro
- Cut out an oval head shape from white felt. Cut out a smaller black felt oval shape to go inside of the white one. Then cut a oval shape smaller than the black felt from pink card (or whatever colour you prefer) to represent the face.
- Glue them on top of one another.
- Cut out yellow felt to resemble hair (or whatever colour you prefer) and then stick this on top of the pink card.
- Glue on the goggly eyes.
- Draw a smile with a black biro.
- Cut a small bit off a white pipe cleaner and then glue onto the back of the white felt oval using a glue gun.
- For the body, cut out the desired shape from white felt. I used a black biro to roughly sketch the shape I wanted and then turned it over so that the clean side was front facing.
- Cut out small design features like circles and stripes from blue and red felt. Glue onto the white body shape as shown in image 1B, below.
- Using a glue gun affix a head onto the body.
- With the glue gun attached a lollipop stick to the body, but make sure there is room to hold it at the bottom. Then affix another lollipop stick above this to support the head vertically. To support the astronaut further I broke some lollipop sticks in two and then glued them across horizontally on top of the vertical sticks, and making sure that the white felt of the body was attached to them also.
Rocket:
Kitchen roll tube
White paint and paintbrush
Tinfoil strip
Scissors
Red, orange and yellow strands of tissue paper
Blue, red, orange, yellow card or paper
Cellotape
- Paint the cardboard roll white (or whatever colour rocket you would like) and leave to dry.
- Once dry add glue to the tinfoil and apply to the roll.
- Cut out coloured card/paper circles to act as windows with some circles being slightly larger than others, then glue these to the rocket.
- Cut a circle out of some card and then make a slit in the card to the middle of the circle. You can then slide one side under the other and affix it with glue to create a slight cone to glue on the top of the rocket.
- Cut out some slanted rocket feet from card (as seen in image 1C, below) and cut a slit into each to then slide onto the base of the rocket. Affix using cellotape.
- Glue the top of the tissue paper strands and then position inside the bottom of the rocket to imitate flames.
During the process we talked about what was in space and discussed how there were other planets in our Solar System. We even watched a fun little video with singing planets which she absolutely loved. Once completed Big Bee's astronaut enjoyed going on her special mission to space and riding about on her rocket.
As the rocket and astronaut were such big hits the next request was for a mermaid and two other sea creatures (I had to draw the line when the whale was mentioned - maybe something to add in the future). Big Bee specifically requested that the mermaid was to have 'naughty' pink hair (not sure where that has come from) and a gem crown. Here's how we created them:
Under the sea - what you will need and the process:
Backdrop:
Blue card
Paints for fish, seaweed and sand and paintbrush
Pen to draw fins etc. on fish
- Paint the sand and seaweed using the paintbrush. Apply paint to finger to create the fish as shown in 2A, below.
- When the paint is dry then draw the fins, eyes, lips and tail using a black pen.
Mermaid:
Lollipop stick
Card/felt/glitter card for fin
Felt for the hair
Scissors
Pop poms for shell bra
Gems for decoration
Goggly eyes
Glue
Pen
- Cut mermaid's tail out of the card and apply decorative gems.
- Glue the tail to the lollipop stick.
- Cut out the hair from felt and glue to the lollipop stick. Add decorative gems to create a crown.
- Apply pom poms and goggly eyes to the lollipop stick.
- Draw the mouth with a black biro.
Jelly fish:
Tissue paper strips
Card for head
Scissors
Pen
Goggly eyes
Glue
Lollipop stick
- Cut out the jellyfish's head from card.
- Apply glue to the top of the tissue paper strips. Turn the head over and affix the strips on to the bottom of the head, as shown in 2B, below.
- On the front stick on the goggly eyes and draw a mouth using a biro.
Octopus:
x4 pipe cleaners
Scissors
Card
Pen
Goggly eyes
Cellotape
Glue
Lollipop stick
- Cut out the octopus' head from card.
- Cut x4 pipe cleaners in half and curl one end of each one.
- Turn the card over and then attach the straight end to the bottom of the head using cellotape, as shown in 2C, below.
- On the front stick on the goggly eyes and draw a mouth using a biro.
Again, we had lots of imaginative play fun with this one, but we also discussed how jellyfish move (after watching a video) and then proceeded to move around like a jellyfish (I would love to know what the neighbours had thought if they had seen this!) and discussed how octopus squirt ink as an escape mechanism when feeling threatened. We also watched a video of this. We then proceeded to dance about the kitchen to The Little Mermaid, Under the Sea because pretending to be jellyfish just wasn't quite enough!
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