DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Bag Santa Claus Craft

Contributed by Leanne Guenther

Paper bag puppets are fun crafts to make and great creative prompts to use while they are playing, reading, singing or making up their own stories. Your kids can use their Santa puppet in little plays they make up.

If using the black and white template, you can use the same templates to create Santa's elves. Just color the pieces differently:

• the beard and eyebrows can be brown, blonde or red
• the body, arms and hat can be green, blue or gold

Materials:

• red paint and paintbrush or red construction paper
• paper bag,
• a printer,
• glue,
• scissors,
• something to colour with and
• a piece of paper.
• Optional:  large wiggly eyes
• Optional:  cotton balls

Instructions:

• Paint the BODY of your bag red or cover it with red construction paper. You can paint the face of the bag with a very light pink (skin color) or just leave it brown like we did.
• Let your bag dry while you're cutting out all the template pieces.
• Print out the Santa Claus template of choice (either color or black and white). The second template has the arms and belt. You can skip this template if you want a slightly shorter craft project.
• Colour the pieces as appropriate and cut them out.  (cutting may require adult assistance and can be pre-done).
• See the picture above for how the puppet should look when complete.

Get Familiar with your Paper Bag:

• I'm going to walk through this slowly.  Look at your paper bag.
• It should be closed and flat like a piece of paper.  Just like when they are brand new.
• On one side, it's all smooth.  This will be the BACK of your puppet.
   
  • It's important that all the kids get the back and front straight at the beginning!
      
• On the other side there's a flippy tab (which is typically the bottom of the bag when you're carrying your lunch around...)
   
  • This flippy tab will be the HEAD.
• Lift the flippy tab up a bit.  Underneath of the tab will be the mouth,
   
  • When the child puts his hand in the bag, he'll be able to make the puppet talk.
      
• Look at the rest of the front of the bag.  (The 3/4 or so of the bag below the part with the flippy tab)  This will be the BODY.
• Look at the sides of the bag.  There should be a FLAP of paper.
   
  • We'll be slipping the arms (template 2) into this flap.
      
• If the kids goof and glue the arms onto the front or back of the bag, it isn't a big deal.
• OK, now that we're comfy with our bags, let's craft!

PUTTING IT TOGETHER:

• Glue the hat onto the top of the head.
• Glue the eyes onto the head, leaving room above them for the eyebrows and below them for the mustache.
• Glue eyebrows above the eyes.
• Lift the head (the flippy tab) and slide the beard underneath. Glue it on (if the kids make a mistake and glue the beard onto the head, it isn't a big deal, the puppet just won't seem to open his mouth as much as it should).
• Glue the mustache onto the head so it hangs down a little bit over the beard.
• Glue the nose onto the head, just above the mustache (I like to let it overlap the mustache a little).
• If using template 2:
  • Glue the arms into the FLAP.
  • Glue the belt across the center of the body.
• Optional: You can glue a cotton balls to the pom pom of the hat and you can tear cotton balls up a bit and glue them to the beard and mustache, if you like!

Craft Templates:

• Close template window when done printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template 1:   (color)   or   (B&W)

Template 2:   (color)   or   (B&W)

Printable version of these instructions