Halloween Kids Crafts: Easy Finger Puppets

When I first launched Craft Jr earlier this year, I put together a set of Easter finger puppet crafts, and they were a huge hit. So I’ve decided to make it a tradition to create pipe cleaner finger puppets for every major holiday (wait till you see the turkey one for Thanksgiving – sooo cute!!). I got so carried away last weekend with making this set of Halloween finger puppets that I ended up with too many to fit into one post! So here is the “Halloween Critters” edition, and next week I’ll add here is the “Halloween Costumes” finger puppet collection.

Halloween Finger Puppets Craft Materials List

I’ve placed a photograph next to each finger puppet with the exact materials needed for each Halloween Critter. All of them require a very easy to find set of stuff:

Pipe Cleaners

Pom Poms (The pumpkin puppet uses a larger pom pom than the others)

Googly Eyes

Glue (Hot glue gun works best, but I’ve since discovered that even regular glue will suffice, it just takes longer to dry)

Wire Cutters (So you don’t ruin your scissors cutting the pipe cleaners)

The jack o’ lantern finger puppet also needs fabric paint (no matter how hard I tried to make the face with other materials, it just looked l.a.m.e.)

How to Make These Halloween Finger Puppet Crafts

Please refer to the original Easter finger puppets post for general assembly instructions.

It explains the general instructions on how to wind the pipe cleaners around your finger and how to attach the pom poms accurately.

Halloween Spider Finger Puppet Craft

Cut black pipe cleaners into 8 pieces about 1 1/2 inch long

Wind the purple finger puppet base

Bend the legs in half slightly and attach 4 on each side to the black pom pom

Glue the small purple pom poms onto the feet of each leg

Glue the spider to the finger puppet base

Glue the googly eyes in place

Halloween Black Cat Finger Puppet Craft

This is just like the spring kitten finger puppet with black materials

Cut two 1 inch pieces of black pipe cleaner and bend them in a “V” for the ears

Bend a 2 1/2 – 3 inch piece of black pipe cleaner into a lopsided “S” for the tail

Wind the finger puppet base

Glue the ears onto the top of the head, and then add the eyes and nose on the front of the face

Glue the head onto the finger puppet base

Attach the tail to the rear end of the black cat by simply bending one end of it around the bottom coil of the finger puppet base

Halloween Vampire Bat Finger Puppet Craft

Cut two 1 inch pieces of black pipe cleaner and bend them in a “V” for the ears

Bend a full piece of black pipe cleaner into the bat wings shape as shown

Pull the ends of the wings pipe cleaner into the middle “V” and wrap them around each other as shown in this image:

Wind the finger puppet base

Glue the ears onto the top of the head, and then add the eyes  on the front of the face

Glue the head onto the finger puppet base

Glue the wings onto the back of the bat, or slip them in between the puppet base coils to hold them in place

Halloween Jack O’ Lantern Finger Puppet

Strangely, what should have been the easiest puppet to make turned out to be the hardest to get looking right. There just wasn’t enough room on medium pom poms to make a good pumpkin face. So then I went to the store again to get big orange pom poms. These gave me the surface needed for the pumpkin face, but the size made them much harder to work with. You’ll notice that the finger puppet base on this one is different than the others – instead of winding the top coil slightly tighter, I ended up leaving a ‘post’ at the top to give the larger pom pom added support for the glue to hold.

I swear this dang pumpkin puppet is my fourth or fifth try – I even started experimenting with it back in April to no avail!

Cut a 3 inch piece of green pipe cleaner and bend it into the shape of a pumpkin stem as shown.

Wind the finger puppet base leaving a ‘post’ on top to support the large size pom pom.

Glue the stem onto the top of the large orange pom pom, and glue the pom pom onto the finger puppet base. Because the large pom pom is so much more fluffy than the medium ones, you really need to hold it in place until the glue sets.

Paint a jack o’ lantern face onto the pom pom with black dimensional fabric paint.