Santa Paper Bag Puppet

Christmas at my house is always full of fun, crafty activities. Surprisingly, we hadn’t done many crafts involving Santa this year yet! I knew it was time to pull out this Santa Paper Bag Puppet for a fun afternoon of crafting with the kids. 

Santa Paper Bag Puppet

Paper bag puppets are some of my kids’ favorite crafts and they’re mine too! Paper bags are very inexpensive to purchase and can often be found at the grocery store. I usually have the rest of the materials already on hand, making this a really inexpensive craft project. Even my younger children can help glue the pieces of the puppet together. 

Following instructions is a skill children need for school, and making a craft at home is a great way to practice that skill. When we craft together, my kids are also honing their fine motor skills and their imaginations! Creating a simple craft is one of our go-to boredom busters. 

Supplies

• Colored construction paper
• Pencil – to trace the template
• Craft glue
• Sharpie or gel pen
• Paper bag
• Scissors

Printable Template

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How to Make a Santa Paper Bag Puppet

Directions 

• Select black, white, pink, yellow, and red colored papers for the Santa puppet. The template includes the following patterns- head, hat, hat border, beard, mustache, eyebrows, hat pompom, gloves, shoes, legs, sleeve border, belt, and buckle. 
• Trace the template patterns on the selected colored papers and cut out the traced pattern.

• Glue the beard onto the bottom of the head.

• Glue the mustache and eyebrows to the head. 

•  Glue the shoes onto the legs and the white glove embellishments to the base of each glove.

• Glue the white hat border to the bottom of the hat and the white pom pom to the tip of the hat. Cut slits into the yellow buckle and slide the belt through the slits.

• Glue the hat onto the head. Use a sharpie to draw the facial features on. 

• Select a paper bag or make your own using brown paper. Prepare a large red piece of paper to cover one side of the bag. This is Santa’s body. 

• Glue a white border to the bottom of the body piece and attach the legs. 

• Glue the body to the paper bag under the flap. 

• Glue the arms to the sides of the body and the belt across the middle. 

• Attach the head to the flattened bottom of the bag

• Optional – cut a toy bag out of construction paper and attach it over one of Santa’s shoulders

Tips and Tricks

• Draw Santa’s facial features onto the face before gluing the eyebrows and mustache. It is hard to draw on top of wayward glue. 
• To make the belt easier, simply glue the yellow buckle onto the belt and then draw a black square into the middle of the buckle with a marker or pen. 
• Pre-cut the pieces for your child and let them do the gluing if they aren’t good with scissors yet. 

More Ideas…

After you make your puppets, read a good book about Santa! How to Catch Santa Claus is a fun one that your kids can then use their puppet to act out after you’re done reading. 

If you have older kids who aren’t so into paper bag puppets but still want to join the fun, have them make these Rudolph Story Puppets! These are smaller and more of a challenge to create, plus your kids can learn how to hold multiple puppets in one hand. 

For a Christmas craft that can double as a toy and as a decoration, try this cute Elf paper cup for a fun new project which actually makes a fun table decoration for Christmas dinner. 

Don’t forget to try a sweet dessert in all your holiday crafting! These Strawberry Dipped Christmas Trees need only six ingredients and are perfect for little helpers. 

Whatever you do, we can’t wait to see it! Tag us on social media @frostingandglue