I’ve been holding onto this craft for a few days, and I’ve decided I can hold onto it no longer. It’s my new favorite craft on this site, and I think it would be a perfect thing to do with kids for a Mother’s Day craft (though I think the plant marker garden craft come in a close second on that).

Behold, the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

I’m actually thinking of making myself a two-tiered one to put in my office. That seems so dorky when I say that out loud though…

What You Need to Make the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

3 sheets of green tissue paper (ideally in three different shades of green)

3 sheets of pink tissue paper (again ideally in three different shades of pink, or whatever three colors you want)

I think the reason this turned out so well was because I was able to use different shades of green and pink tissue paper. Normal tissue paper packages don’t come so nicely shaded for paper flower crafts, but I swear by a huge package of tissue paper I am able to get at Hobby Lobby for $5 (inconveniently they don’t sell online, but CreateforLess has shades of green at $.89 a package).

A 3 inch styrofoam ball

A small cylinder or cube of floral foam to stick into the clay pot (You could also use play dough)
(I cut a triangle of styrofoam from some appliance packaging we had around the house)

A 3 inch (or so) mini clay plant pot

Plain straight pins

4 straight pins with pretty pearlescent ball on top for the main flowers

A 6″-7″ inch stick from your yard

How to Make the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

First cut up the green tissue paper into approximately 2 inch squares. They are going to get crumpled up, so don’t worry about being precise or anything.

Start scrunching up the squares into loose little balls. I found it worked best if I rolled them between my hands as if it were clay I was trying to roll into a ball. Even on a tiny ball you will need a surprisingly large number of these, because you want them to be relatively close together.

Next just start pinning them to the styrofoam ball. Don’t put them too close together, because you will want to have room to put in the flowers. You can see in the second photo how close I put them together.

Now cut up your pink tissue paper into squares. For the largest flowers I used about 3 inch squares, the medium about two inch squares and the small about one inch squares. Again, this is approximate, because they are just going to get crumpled up again.

Add the largest flowers first, because they will be the most prominent and need to be placed somewhat evenly around the ball. I thought I was going to add a lot, but found that four was plenty. If you can find straight pins with the pretty pearl tops, use those to attach the largest flowers. If you have a lot of those, you can also use them for your smaller flowers too. I didn’t, so I just used regular straight pins everywhere else.

Then add the smaller flowers in between the green ‘leaves’ where you can still see the styrofoam.

Next, decide what part of the ball you want to be the top, and stuff the stick from your yard into the bottom. I didn’t take a picture of this part, because it’s pretty dang easy to do. Then shove the cylinder or dough into the flower post, and stuff the stick into the midde so that it is standing straight up.

Cover the foam base with green tissue like you did the top ball, but this time, don’t let the styrofoam peek through.

And ta – da, you are done!

Easy Friendship Bracelets

But I do have one trick up my sleeve that I know you will want to learn – and that’s how to make one of those sliding knots so that you need no clasp, and so that the bracelet is adjustable for any size wrist. I learned this knot in college as a rock climber under it’s other name, the Double Fisherman’s Knot. I’ve also heard it called a Chinese Sliding Knot.

Either way, it’s one of the most handy knots you will ever learn to make – because the beauty of this knot is not just that it is adjustable, but also that the more you pull on it, the more it tightens itself.

How to Tie a Sliding Knot

How to Tie a Sliding Knot Diagram

The sliding knot diagram is easy to follow, but it can get a little tricky if you create the knot loosely and then tighten it sloppily. My advice: be really careful about keeping all the strands in place as you tighten it – trust me, it will save you plenty of headaches and tangled cording later.

Make a friendship bracelet with a sliding knot

Here’s a picture of the sliding knot in action on the back of the braided friendship bracelet.

What You Need to Make These Easy Friendship Bracelets

• Leather lacing (in at least three colors for the braided bracelet).
• Six wooden beads with bead holes big enough for the leather lace to fit through (for the beaded bracelet).
• You can also use colorful nylon cording instead of leather for either of these friendship bracelets.

For the beaded friendship bracelet, first cut the end of the leather lace at an angle, which will make it easier to slide on the beads. Then simply tie a regular knot, slide on a bead, and repeat until all the beads are on your bracelet.

Finish off with the sliding knot.

Cut the leather lacing for easy beading

Easy Friendship Bracelet with Beads

For the braided leather bracelet, knot together three strands of leather laces. Keep one of them longer than the rest on the top end, because you will use it to tie the bracelet off.

Braid the laces, then tie another knot to keep the braid together. Then simply clip off two of the three stands near the knot as shown in the first photograph below.

Finish off with the sliding knot.

Braided Leather Friendship Bracelet

Easy Braided Leather Friendship Bracelet

Be sure to check out all of our camp crafts and teen crafts while you are here! One that is hugely popular is this nightlight made from Mod Podge and a recycled plastic drink mix container.

Easter Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppets

When I had to idea to create some finger puppets out of pipe cleaners, little did I realize what creativity I would unleash in my children. 3 packages of pipe cleaners later, I have enough different finger puppet ideas for probably 10 more posts! I had no idea these would be such easy crafts for kids.

Pipe cleaners are extremely forgiving and deceptively easy to work with. Anything you ‘mess up’ while bending them is fixable. And by using a hot glue gun, you are pretty much unlimited in how you can attach eyes, limbs, and embellishments.

Check out our Halloween Finger Puppets Craft, too!

What you Need to Make Easter Finger Puppets

Pipe cleaners of various colors

Mini pom poms of various colors and sizes (you can substitute cotton balls sometimes)

Googly eyes

Hot glue gun

Wire cutters

(Our local Dollar Store had great cheap coordinating sets of pipe cleaners with matching pom poms)

How to Make Easter Finger Puppets

Once you see the components of each of these pipe cleaner finger puppets, assembly is pretty self-explanatory. But here’s the key “puppet base” that they are all made from:

Finger Puppet Base

Step 1 is to take the pipe cleaner and wrap it around your finger. I like to do it rather tightly, because once it is off of your finger, it is easier to stretch it out than it is to tighten it up.

Important: Notice that the top of the pipe cleaner coils down to a smaller circle. Do this so that it is easier to glue the pom pom head on top, and to lessen the possibility that you will get the hot glue on your fingers (which, if it hasn’t happened to you yet, pray that it doesn’t. OMG.)

Here are the pieces of each of the pipe cleaner finger puppets shown above. I was skeptical whether the hot glue would work on some of these pieces, but it worked perfectly. Just put a tiny dab of glue onto the wire end of the pipe cleaner and stick it straight down into the pom pom – it will stick after just a second or two of holding it in place.

Easter Bunny Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Easter Bunny Finger Puppet

After gluing the white head onto the pipe cleaner body, stick a dab of glue onto both wire ends on one of the bent pipe cleaner ears. Stick them firmly into the pom pom while squeezing the ends together.

Glue two tiny white pom poms on the face as a base to stick the googly eyes. This is really optional, and you can see on the kitten finger puppet below that you can also just glue the googly eyes directly onto the pom pom head.

Then glue on the pink nose and the medium sized pink pom pom for the tail.

Easter Chick Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Easter Chick Finger Puppet

After gluing the white head onto the pipe cleaner body, clip a tiny piece of orange pipe cleaner and bend it into a V shape, and glue it onto the middle of the face. Glue the two yellow mini pom poms right above the beak to make a base for the googly eyes, then glue them on top of them. Take about a 4 inch piece of extra yellow pipe cleaner and bend it into the wing shape as shown. You don’t even need to glue these in, just slip them onto the body in between the coils and they will stay put.

Spring Kitten Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Spring Kitten Finger Puppet

After gluing the white head onto the pipe cleaner body, clip two small pieces of white pipe cleaner (about 3/4″ long) and bend them into a V. Glue them onto the top of the head. I skipped the extra tiny pom pom eye base on this one, wanting to go for a more “Hello Kitty” look. You only need one tiny pink pom pom for the nose, but here’s a little tip: if you don’t have a tiny pom pom to use, you can clip a tiny piece of pink pipe cleaner (less than 1/4″ long) and glue it onto the face instead. The tail is attached by bending it onto the bottom coil on the back of the kitten’s pipe cleaner body.

Bluebird Pipe Cleaner Finger Puppet

Spring Bluebird Finger Puppet

To make this variance on the Easter chick, I omitted the mini pom pom base for the eyes, and added a little tuft of feathers on the top of the head the same way I did the kitten’s ears (but only added one and put it on lengthwise instead of sideways). The wings are also a slightly simpler version of the yellow wings, and might be easier for smaller children to bend on their own.

Halloween Kids Crafts Finger Puppets

When I first launched Craft Jr earlier this year, I put together a set of Easter finger puppet crafts, and they were a huge hit. So I’ve decided to make it a tradition to create pipe cleaner finger puppets for every major holiday (wait till you see the turkey one for Thanksgiving – sooo cute!!). I got so carried away last weekend with making this set of Halloween finger puppets that I ended up with too many to fit into one post! So here is the “Halloween Critters” edition, and next week I’ll add here is the “Halloween Costumes” finger puppet collection.

Halloween Finger Puppets Craft Materials List

I’ve placed a photograph next to each finger puppet with the exact materials needed for each Halloween Critter. All of them require a very easy to find set of stuff:

Pipe Cleaners

Pom Poms (The pumpkin puppet uses a larger pom pom than the others)

Googly Eyes

Glue (Hot glue gun works best, but I’ve since discovered that even regular glue will suffice, it just takes longer to dry)

Wire Cutters (So you don’t ruin your scissors cutting the pipe cleaners)

The jack o’ lantern finger puppet also needs fabric paint (no matter how hard I tried to make the face with other materials, it just looked l.a.m.e.)

How to Make These Halloween Finger Puppet Crafts

Please refer to the original Easter finger puppets post for general assembly instructions.

It explains the general instructions on how to wind the pipe cleaners around your finger and how to attach the pom poms accurately.

Halloween Spider Finger Puppet Craft

Halloween Spider Finger Puppet Craft

Cut black pipe cleaners into 8 pieces about 1 1/2 inch long

Wind the purple finger puppet base

Bend the legs in half slightly and attach 4 on each side to the black pom pom

Glue the small purple pom poms onto the feet of each leg

Glue the spider to the finger puppet base

Glue the googly eyes in place

Halloween Black Cat Finger Puppet Craft

Halloween Black Cat Finger Puppet Craft

This is just like the spring kitten finger puppet with black materials

Cut two 1 inch pieces of black pipe cleaner and bend them in a “V” for the ears

Bend a 2 1/2 – 3 inch piece of black pipe cleaner into a lopsided “S” for the tail

Wind the finger puppet base

Glue the ears onto the top of the head, and then add the eyes and nose on the front of the face

Glue the head onto the finger puppet base

Attach the tail to the rear end of the black cat by simply bending one end of it around the bottom coil of the finger puppet base

Halloween Vampire Bat Finger Puppet Craft

Halloween Vampire Bat Finger Puppet Craft

Cut two 1 inch pieces of black pipe cleaner and bend them in a “V” for the ears

Bend a full piece of black pipe cleaner into the bat wings shape as shown

Pull the ends of the wings pipe cleaner into the middle “V” and wrap them around each other as shown in this image:

How to Make Bat Wings

Wind the finger puppet base

Glue the ears onto the top of the head, and then add the eyes  on the front of the face

Glue the head onto the finger puppet base

Glue the wings onto the back of the bat, or slip them in between the puppet base coils to hold them in place

Halloween Jack O’ Lantern Finger Puppet

Halloween Pumpkin Finger Puppet Craft

Strangely, what should have been the easiest puppet to make turned out to be the hardest to get looking right. There just wasn’t enough room on medium pom poms to make a good pumpkin face. So then I went to the store again to get big orange pom poms. These gave me the surface needed for the pumpkin face, but the size made them much harder to work with. You’ll notice that the finger puppet base on this one is different than the others – instead of winding the top coil slightly tighter, I ended up leaving a ‘post’ at the top to give the larger pom pom added support for the glue to hold.

I swear this dang pumpkin puppet is my fourth or fifth try – I even started experimenting with it back in April to no avail!

Cut a 3 inch piece of green pipe cleaner and bend it into the shape of a pumpkin stem as shown

Wind the finger puppet base leaving a ‘post’ on top to support the large size pom pom

Glue the stem onto the top of the large orange pom pom, and glue the pom pom onto the finger puppet base. Because the large pom pom is so much more fluffy than the medium ones, you really need to hold it in place until the glue sets.

Paint a jack o’ lantern face onto the pom pom with black dimensional fabric paint

More Halloween Kids Crafts

Check out these Halloween handprint crafts, Halloween paper bag crafts, Halloween treat ideas and our Halloween coloring pages, too!

Support these Great Kids Craft Blogs by Independent Crafty-type People

Crafty Crow	The Crafty Crow is a ‘Children’s Craft Collective’ in which they gather up great craft projects from around the web and post them all in one place. They find some of the coolest stuff on the web!
One Pretty Thing	One Pretty Thing is also a collection of crafts from around the web, but it is mostly crafts kids can make – some of them are things adults can make for kids. Total eye candy here, plan on getting stuck at the site for a very. long. time.
Fem Manuals	Fem Manuals is written in Portuguese, but I’m just blown away by the creativity of their projects and use of everyday materials to make absolutely beautiful things! They also post a lot of photos to Flickr so that you can mostly figure out how to make their projects without needing to read Spanish.
Little Birdie Secrets	Little Birdie Secrets has adorable kids crafts sprinkled in with some really yummy looking recipes, including pies and cupcakes in jars!
Zakka Life	Zakka Life shares gorgeous crafts made with the most surprisingly simple materials. Who knew paper bags and toilet paper rolls could be so chic!
Dollar Store Crafts	Dollar Store Crafts – a woman after my own heart! I hate going to my local crafts store and dropping $100, especially when I know I can make great stuff from the dollar store for less than $10!
Croq Zine	CROQ Zine is written by the same people behind Dollar Store Crafts, and is the companion blog to the CROQ Zine print magazine. Just the illustrations on the covers are worth a visit!
Kiddio	Kiddio is a combo craft project and craft collective bog, and another one that finds ways to make everyday objects into lovely bits of awesomeness.
Kids Craft Weekly	Kids Craft Weekly is more of a newsletter than a blog, but you can get a taste of the coolness they have to offer both on their site and in their Flickr photo pool.
Plaid Kids Crafts	Plaid Kids Crafts is the kids craft blog by the people from Plaid craft supplies. They may not be an indie blog, but their creativity makes up for it!
Make and Takes	Make and Takes is a well established blog written by a crafty mom who seems to have a never-ending stream of creativity. She also has some super-cool recipes tucked in here, including one for Root Beer Cookies. Don’t tell my son – he won’t leave me alone until I make them!
One Crafty Place	One Crafty Place is one of my new favorites on this list. This is a craft collective blog, and also includes some irresistible adult crafts too. As if I need more things to do right now!
Wee Life	Wee Life is full of crafty creative stuff along with some local things to do with kids for several major cities. Plus they have a scrumptious section of printables. Yay!
Skip to My Lou	Skip to My Lou is so beautifully designed that it makes me feel happier just to see it. She also does frequent giveaways of crafty cool stuff, what’s not to love??
Craft Jr.	Craft Jr. is of course our blog right here! We’re pretty proud of it and the success it has seen in the few short weeks it’s been around. We hope you love it as much as we love writing it!

If you’re still in need of creative inspiration, check out these killer art and craft magazines, too.

Sure enough, I made God’s Eye’s in Vacation Bible School and at Girl Scout Camp, so this craft is the very first to come to mind when I think of camp crafts! Plus they are easy enough for preschoolers to make them, but pretty enough for teens to get into making them.

Camp Crafts: God's Eyes

God Eyes Materials

What You Need to Make God's Eyes

• Scrap Yarn
• Two Sticks
• Floral Wire (optional)

Making God’s Eyes is super easy and can be made with minimal materials. Many people use popcicle sticks instead of real sticks, but I like the look of the latter, it makes it feel more like a nature craft. Technically you don’t need the floral wire, but if you wire the sticks together first, it makes it much easier to wrap the yarn, so I recommend it for smaller children.

How to Make God’s Eyes

God Eyes - How to Make

First use the wire or your first piece of yarn to tie the sticks together in a 90 degree angle.

Then start wrapping your yarn around and under each stick as shown in the illustration above.

How to Tie Off Yarn on God's Eyes

Tie off the colors on the same side so that the front is seamless. I chose the ‘stick’ side to be the back, but it just as easily could have been the front. Tie off your last yarn with a loop knotten on the end so that you can hang your God’s Eye.

For more summer fun, check out all of our summer activities from the Woo! Jr. Network.

I’ve always been fascinated with package design, so this little project is an exciting first step for me to start putting together some of my own box templates to print & download.

For the favor box pictured above, I printed out the box template onto double sided scrapbook lightweight cardstock. I actually intended for this side of the paper to be on the inside, but fed the paper into my printer wrong. ‘Doh! So I recommend doing a trial run to ensure you are getting what you want before you print out the box template onto your nice papers.

Printed onto a regular letter sized piece of paper at 8.5″ x 11″ inches, the box stands approximately 5 inches tall. If you have a printer or copier to print at larger sizes, you could turn this box template into a gorgeous gift box, or print it on plain paper and let the kids color and decorate it.

How to Put Together the Favor Box

Simple. Just print and then cut out the box template on the outside solid lines. Make folds on the gray dotted lines, and glue the one flap on the bottom end of the template to the opposite end of the box. Then fold the bottm box flaps as shown and tuck the last flap underneath the top flap.

Download and Print the Favor Box Template

Be sure to check out our printable letters, other paper crafts and the birthday party supplies and ideas from all Woo! Jr. Websites for Kids.

Until I come up with a cool tissue paper saving system, I figured I should do something with the scraps right away, because, you know, it’s not really the right week to throw things away like that! So I had already set aside my kids’ raisin boxes and Jello boxes, and I needed a craft to post on Space Jr. because I haven’t done any there yet, so making aliens was the logical solution!

You can totally make these cardboard box aliens without tissue paper scraps and without the mess of decoupage. Just use paint instead.

What You Need to Make this Easy Alien Craft for Kids

• Jello, raisin, or other small empty carboard boxes
• Pipe cleaners for the antennae and legs
• Googly eyes
• Tissue paper scraps
• Wire cutters
• Decoupage glue
• Glitter glue (optional)

How to Make this Easy Alien Craft for Kids

First cover the boxes with the glue and tissue paper. Lay down a thin layer of glue with a paint brush, then lay down the tissue paper, then cover it with another layer of glue. The silver alien used scraps of silver tissue paper, which is very opaque compared to regular tissue paper so I only needed one layer of it. With the purple monster, I had to use about 4 layers of purple tissue paper to ensure you couldn’t see the artwork on the food boxes.

I then added some cut circle scraps from this decoupage project for the eyes, and found some other colored triangles or rectangles to make the mouths. These I glued on just like the rest of the tissue paper.

After the decoupage is dry, use a razor blade to cut four tiny x’s into the bottom of the box, and two tiny x’s in the top as shown. This is where you will insert the antennae and legs.

Cut two pieces of pipe cleaner for the antennae, and three to four for the legs. It was a bit easier to make them stand up on their own with more legs.

To make the spiral antennae, wrap the pipe cleaners around a pencil or paint brush, then pull it off.

Make tiny feet by simply bending the pip cleaners into an oval on the ends.

Then simply stick the ends of the pipe cleaners into the tiny slits you cut with the razor blade.

All that’s left to do is glue on your googly eyes. This is optional too, because you could just as easily decoupage or paint on the eyes. I wanted to use glitter glue to make them, well, more alien-y. I also used two different sized eyes, because I thought it was cuter that way!

If you’re really into aliens & monsters, you’d probably also like these robot alien coloring pages and these fuzzy monster coloring pages, too!

As you can tell, this week I’ve been on a recycled crafts kick for Earth Day. But what’s really happening is that I’m relapsing into my terrible pack rat ways as suddenly I am having a hard time throwing anything out at all! I suppose the earth shall thank me someday for this, but my husband isn’t thanking me. *grin*

And is anyone else appreciating the irony of making a nightlight out of a Crystal Light container? I know, I should have quit while I was ahead.

Recycled Nightlight Craft

What You Need to Make a Recycled Night Light Craft

Recycled Night Light craft Materials

• An empty Crystal Light container
• A night light from your local Dollar Store (the real cheap kind shown below)
• A plastic covered large paper clip
• Mod Podge or other glue for decoupage
• Paper or fabric to decoupage the plastic Crystal Light container
• A paint brush for the glue
• Ribbon trim (about 30″ inches)
• Wire cutters
• Razor blade to cut the container
• A small ruler or other straight edge
• A medium sized nail and a hammer to poke two holes in the plastic
• Glue gun

How to Make This Night Light Recycled Craft

Cut the Crystal Light Container with a Razor Blade

First you need to cut up your Crystal Light (or Wyler’s Light, to be PC about it all) container. In this photo, I was using the tall Wyler’s Light container, or this would also be the same size as the extra large Crystal Light packages (with 6 tubs, not 4).

First I held the ruler straight edge to the side of the container and carefully scored the plastic to slice the container open from top to bottom. I then was able to cut through the container easily (but carefully, because it’s easy to slip on a curved surface). I repeated this step so that I cut out about a one-inch piece from the side of the container. Then I was able to lay the plastic flat on a carboard surface and cut the container into two even pieces, as shown above. If I messed up at all, it was easy to clean up my edges with sturdy kitchen scissors.

Poke Holes in the Plastic with a Nail

Next I poked two small holes into the bottom corners of the plastic with a hammer and nail. I recommend using a larger nail than the one shown above, because I ended up needing to find a screw to twist into the holes to make them a little larger. You need them to be large enough to stick the end of the paper clip through them.

Decoupage with Recycled Tissue Paper

After you have poked the holes into the corners, now is the time to decoupage the plastic however you like. I used tissue paper circles to coordinate with the ribbon in my example at the top. My daughter took the leftover tissue packing paper we get at the dollar store when we buy fragile items, and we used a circle hole puncher to cut out and decoupage her night light.

You probably don’t want to use paper from a book or magazine, unless you are happy with the reverse side showing through. Because when the night light is turned on, it really glows through the paper.

Quick decorating tip - you can also use fabric that coordinates with your child’s room decor!

Now you want to unbend a paperclip and wrap it around the base of the night light. Be sure you’re doing this with plastic wrapped wire and around the groove of the night light at the base (made for sliding the plastic cover onto the light). Higher end night lights aren’t nearly as easy to use, as they don’t have this handy groove to hold your wire.

Twist the paper clip around the base with your fingers or with the wire cutters, and then use the wire cutters to make two “L” shaped bends in the paper clip as shown in the second photo. Slip the ends of the paper clip through your holes.

Lastly, you will need to lay a line of glue from your hot glue gun underneath the wires and glue the ends of the paper clip to the back side of the decoupaged container. If you don’t do this, the cover will flop all over the place.

Now you want to cover the edges of your plastic cover with ribbon to hide the wire and make the edges look polished. Start at the back and cover the back two ends with ribbon first, and add enough glue from the hot glue gun around the paper clip to cover it up too.

To put ribbon across the top and bottm, fold over the edge just a bit and glue it in place to give the corners a clean look (like in the inset in the second image above). Then simply glue the ribbon onto the top and bottom edges with the glue gun.

And viola! You  are done! Start to finish the craft takes about 30-45 minutes, not including drying time for the decoupage.

Be sure to check out the rest of our recycled crafts and all of our Earth Day activities and printables!

So, for all the missing mismatched socks we have in this house, I should have a sock puppet museum by now. Seriously. So to keep with our recycled crafts theme of the week for Earth Day, here’s a pretty darn cute animal sock puppet idea.

What You Need to Make this Giraffe Animal Sock Puppet

• An old sock – preferably tan and long-ish, like an adult size dress sock
• One brown pipe cleaner
• Two brown pom poms
• Two googly eyes
• Brown and black paint
• Paint brush
• Glue gun
• Wire clippers

Do all your prep work before you start painting, because you’ll be assembling most of this puppet while it is on your hand, which will make it a little tricky to do other things.

Step One: Cut the pipe cleaner into 4 pieces. 2 pieces are 1″ inch long, 2 pieces are 2″ inches long.

Bend the longer pieces in half to form the ears.

With the glue gun, glue one end of the shorter pieces into the center of the pom poms. These are the giraffe horns.

Step Two: Get your paint and brush ready, and make sure it is slightly watery like tempera or acrylic paint in the containers in the photo above. If you’re using thicker paints, it will be much harder to get it to sink into the sock fibers.

Step Three: Put the sock onto your hand, with your fingers going into the toe of the sock, and your thumb going into the heel like this:

Step Four: Paint spots on the sock. They should be random, mishapen spots like on a real giraffe. For a ‘realistic effect’ (ha!), you can make the spots smaller as they get closer to the head. Then paint two black spots on the nose as shown in the first photo for the nose holes.

Step Five: Use the hot glue gun to glue the googly eyes, pipe cleaner ears, and pom pom horns onto the head. This sounds like it might be tricky, but it isn’t. Just put a drop of the glue the size of a small pea where you want the parts, and stick them on. I glued the ears into the fold of the sock that you can see in the photo above, directly to the left of the paint brush at the back of the puppet mouth.

Step Six: Play with your sock puppet!

Animal Sock Puppet: Giraffe

For you animal lovers, be sure to check out Animal Jr., with tons of animal printables, animal coloring pages, and even a few giraffes hanging around.