How to Make a Quiet Book: Barn & Finger Puppets
About Lindsey:
I'm Lindsey, I live in Kentucky with my
husband Alberto and our two boys, Aidan (3 years) and Elian (14
months). I graduated from Texas A&M in 2004 and moved to Kentucky
for an internship. I was a manager at a large horse farm (my first
dream job) but now I am a stay at home mom (my second dream job:-))
and my husband is the manager on a local thoroughbred horse farm. My
hobbies are quilting and cooking and hanging out with my sweet
family!
How to Make a Barn & Finger Puppets
Quiet Book Page
Supplies from Joann's:
- stiffened felt in the following colors: Yellow and White
- regular felt : Pink, black and red
- sew on velcro dots
- Pellon Peltex extra firm craft stiffner
Supplies from Hobby Lobby:
- stiffened red felt (the red felt sheets were larger so I could cut 2 barns from each sheet)
- feathery arm scrunchy thing ( I couldn't find the packages of feathers so I bought the smallest feather thing I could find!)
Supplies from my stash:
- colorful cotton for the animal pocket
- soft iron on interfacing- I ironed this on the back of my piggy finger puppets to add some stability to the soft felt.
- ¼ inch brown ribbed ribbon (for the barn roof)
- 5/8 inch brown ribbed ribbon ( for the “beam” over the barn door)
- clear finger nail polish or Fray Check
Templates:
Most of my ideas came from the Serving
Pink Lemonade blog, she has all the templates avaliable on her page.
However my printer was out of commission when I needed the templates
so I ended up tracing my own templates, using her photos as guides.
I free handed the piggy ears, cow spots, and chicken beaks.
Page Assembly:
- Cut from pellon, 8 ½ x 10. I used my rotary cutter for this.
- Cut barn from stiff red felt.
- Cut doors- I started from the center, cut up about 5 inches and then to the left and right 3 inches.
- Cut 4 white strips 3/8 inch wide by 6 inches long from either the stiffened white felt or the scraps from the pellon for the x's on the barn doors. Arrange in an x pattern on each door and sew on doors. Trim off corners to fit barn door.
- Cut a 2 ¼ x 5/8 piece of the stiff white felt or pellon for the barn latch. Sew one side of the velcro on the latch and sew latch to barn door. Sew the other velcro on the appropriate barn door so it stays closed.
- Cut a 3 ½ x 6 ½ inch strip of cotton
and hem the long sides to make a 3 x 6 ½ inch strip. Sew three
three sides of the strip on the page leaving top open. I eyeballed
for the positioning, the bottom should be placed where the bottom of
the barn will be so it makes a pocket when the barn doors are open.
- Place the barn over the pocket and sew
the sides and above the barn doors. Leave the roof and the bottom
loose.
- Sew from the top of the door opening to
the bottom to secure the pocket with some extra stitching and to
reinforce the opening of the door.
- Sew the ¼ inch brown ribbon with a zigzag stitch. Seal the ends of the ribbon with clear nail polish or fray check.
- Sew the 5/8 inch brown ribbon over the doors with a single zigzag stitch.
Animals:
Cow:
- Cut 2 finger puppet shapes from the stiffened white felt.
- Cut 2 ears, one each from the black and the white.
- Iron Steam a Seam on the back on one sheet of black and one sheet of Pink felt. Cut the noses for the pig and the cow from the pink and cut the spots from the black for the cow spots.
- Position the ears between the two white finger puppet pieces and sew together. Iron the spots and noses on and use a sharpie to draw on the eyes.
Pig:
- Iron the soft interfacing on one side of the pink felt.
- Cut 2 finger puppets from the pink felt.
- Cut 2 pink ears ( I just cut out triangles)Sandwich the ears between the puppet pieces and sew together.
- Iron on pink piggy nose.
Chicken:
(The chicken pictured here was made
with a felt cut out feather, for the others I used feathers- this was
my first “test” chicken, I like the feathers better but if you
are just making one chicken it may be easier to cut the tuft out of
felt)
- Cut 2 finger puppets from the stiff yellow felt
- Cut 2 wings from the same felt
- Sandwich the wings and the feather tuft between the pieces and sew together.
- Iron Steam A Seam on the back of a piece of red felt and cut out the chicken beaks. Iron on face.
Up Next: Tent & Sleeping Bag Zippers
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