Fairy Finger Puppets

While trapped in my house for two days this week, in sub-zero Chicago, I decided to make some finger puppets. With our car fuel line frozen and no way of going to my beloved craft store, I had to work only with materials at hand.  I always thought it would be effective to use a large wooden bead as the head on a finger puppet. Since I had no large beads I wound up using a ball left over from my Ping Pong Ball Thanksgiving Turkey project.  It turns out a ping pong ball makes a perfect head for a little puppet.

Materials

• Ping Pong balls
• Acrylic craft paint for ping ball ball. I used a "sandstone" color for the flash color.
• Small paintbrush
• Paint or markers for mouth, eyes and nose
• Small scissors. Nail scissors work well.
• Yarn or embroidery floss for hair
• Craft glue
• Fabric
• Tooth pick
• Confetti or star sticker for wand
• White felt for wings
• Gauzy fabric for wings
• Needle and thread
• Optional accessories like beads for headband, necklaces, trim on dress 

Steps

1. Hold the ping pong ball so that the indentation is where the jawline of your face will be. This way it will not show when you add the hair. Poke a hole where the neck will be using something like a knitting needle or nail.
2. Use tiny, sharp scissors to cut away a neck hole. Make it large enough for a finger to fit inside.
3. Paint the ping pong ball the skin color of your choosing and let it dry.
4. Add facial features to your head. I used white paint to make the eyes and permanent markers for the lips, nose, eyebrows and pupils.
5. Assemble your hair. Lay a long piece of yarn down on a newspaper and put glue all over it. Then cut your hair pieces (longer than you need them to be) and glue them along the center of the main piece.
6. After the glue is dry you can attach your hair to the top of the ping pong ball. Wait to give your puppet a final haircut until she is all assembled and you can see what length will look best. 
7. I sketched out a simple wing shape and cut out 2 felt wings and 2 gauzy pieces to go over the felt. Glue them together.
8. I made a simple dress template that is around 3 inches high and 2 inches wide at the bottom. You want the neck to be long so you can stuff the fabric inside the ping pong ball hole and hold the puppet together.
9. Pin the template to some fabric and cut out two pieces. If you are using felt and hand stitching you can cut it out along the line of the pattern. Otherwise give yourself 1/4 inch around extra for seam allowance.
10. Sew the dress pieces together with the front sides pinned together. When you sew you will sew down the neck, down both arms, and down the side. You will leave the bottom, head and sleeves open so that you can add hands later.
11. Reverse the dress and cut out some little felt hands. Sew them into the sleeves.
12. Apply glue to the inside rim of the ping pong ball and stuff the neck of the dress into the head using your finger like you will when it is a puppet.
13. Sew the wings onto the back of the puppet.
14. Make a wand. I used a toothpick painted gold and some star confetti I had left over from a party. You could also cut out a star from tinfoil or use those star stickers they sell at office stores. The star seems to have fallen off the wand in our photos so you also could just have a plain stick.
15. Glue the wand into the hand.

Here the fairy joins some of her pirate friends.

Pom Pom Fairy Acorns

If you come across some acorns like these in your trees, look closely, you may find a fairy nearby!

If not, you could also try to make your own because they are pretty cute.

Here is how;

Start off with a pom pom, we made our own pom poms which are really easy to make,

and look even better than the store bought ones.

You can buy pom pom makers, or cut one like I did here. You can even just use 2 fingers, and 

wrap the yarn around them.

1 .So, I like to start with one strand of yarn in the middle of the 2 sides, that can later be used to tie off the middle of the pom pom. I have just found this to be easier.

2. Lay the other piece on top of the yarn.

3. Start wrapping yarn around the middle. Just make sure that loose strand in the middle, stays loose.

 The more yarn, the bigger and denser the pom pom. 

4. When you are done wrapping it, turn it upside down and see if those ends are sticking out.

5. Just pull them together and get ready to tie a knot. You can't pull it as tight

as it needs to be at this point, but you can get all your yarn gathered.

6. Tie that knot.

7. Now turn it rightside up, and cut along the round edge, straight through the yarn.

8. Now the cardboard is loose, so just pull the pieces off. 

9. And now you can really pull the knot as tight as it needs to be. I make a double knot.

10. So grab those strings you just used to tie the knots, and shake the pom pom out. You should have an unruly, messy pom pom now.

11. Take your scissors, and clean it up to a more uniform ball. (or leave it messier if you like!) Just a little at a time, it can shrink to a tiny pom pom fast!

So, now that you have the pom poms, go get some acorn tops!

The tutorial pom pom, was make with a wool roving yarn. These pom poms above were

 made with cotton yarn. 2 very different looks.

1. Get your supplies. Pom poms, acorn tops, and glue.

2. So simple, using craft glue, fill the acorn top and then attach it to the pom pom.

3. If you want your acorn to hang, then just fold over your ribbon of choice, 

and slip it in between the pom pom and acorn top, when you glue it.

Now  let them dry, and think of all the cute places to hang them.

Windows, 

ornaments, 

attached to a gift, 

in a tiny fairy home,

 in a tree or plant,

off of a lamp, 

I mean, c'mon it's endless!