TMNT Turtle Puppets

Hey, dudes!  It’s time to party on with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a little more.  One of the things I knew Little Crafter’s friends would enjoy was having a few crafts to make.  The other day, I shared the felt Pizza Magnet project; today I want to show you the other project they did…Turtle Puppets!

TIME REQUIRED: 10 min prep, 5 min to assemble
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: easy, good for ages 3 and up
SPECIAL TOOLS/SKILLS: none

Materials:
– styrofoam ball
– green multi-surface paint
– sponge brush
– felt {orange, purple, blue, and/or red} cut into small strips
– scissors
– google eyes
– Elmer’s glue
– craft sticks {ours came pre-colored}

Step 1: Paint the styrofoam ball{s} green.  I knew it would be a disaster if I tried letting 12 little ones paint these for themselves, especially on my beige carpet, so I opted to prep these the night before.  Also, they take a little while to dry, so we wouldn’t have been able to move on to the next steps until later in the party.  It worked great having them ready to go, so all the kids had to do was assemble the pieces.  To paint them, I just used a sponge brush and dabbed the green paint all over the ball until the white was covered.

Step 2: Push craft stick partway into the ball.  Even the smallest kids were able to do this themselves.

Step 3: Wrap felt strip around the center of the ball and glue in place.  I cut the felt ahead of time; the size depends on the size of the styrofoam balls you use.  I just made sure it was slightly wider than the eyes and long enough to overlap a bit when wrapped around the ball.

Step 4: Glue the eyes onto the mask!

If you like, you can also use a permanent marker to add a mouth or other details, but most of the kids were happy with them as is.  Here’s how they looked all finished!  Introducing…Michaelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Donatello!

They were a huge hit with the kids, and they were so easy and inexpensive to do.

What do you think?  Are there some turtle fans you know who would enjoy making a few of these?

 PS. Be sure to check out our other party craft, the pizza magnets, too if you missed them the other day!