Felt Shadow Puppets

A longer lasting alternative to paper puppets

Posted by Celestial Kat

About

I've been making these as part of a Christmas present for my son who wanted a puppet theatre this year. I've found him a wooden theatre which doubles as a shop and along with finger and hand puppets I intend to put up a shadow puppet screen too.

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You Will Need (5 things)

  • Black Felt Any size depending on your puppets
  • Wooden Skewers Points cut off.
  • Contrasting Embroidery Thread
  • Paper
  • Glue

Steps (3 steps, 60 minutes)

  1. 1

    These are incredibly simple and much more durable than the paper versions you can make. First draw your template and cut it out. If your felt is large enough to take two of your design fold the sheet in half and pin together, otherwise take two pieces, pin them and lay the template on top. (You don't just have to use black by the way, any colour will do) Using tailors chalk or a white gel pen draw round it, around 5mm from the edge.

  2. 2

    Cut out your design, you should have two pieces yes? Now trim your template, making sure it fits on the felt pieces without overlapping and that you have a seam allowance. When your happy with the fit use some glue (I love Bostick or UHU all purpose glue with felt) to sandwich you template between the felt shapes, adding your blunt wooden skewer before you glue the top piece down.

  3. 3

    If your happy with this then you're done, but if you want to make the shadow puppets look more polished back stitch round the shapes roughly 5mm from the edge in contrasting thread. Be careful to hide any knots. If the back looks a little untidy use a black fabric pen to disguise the stitches. And there you go, ready to be used!