Gnome Puppet Craft - Paper Bag Puppet Template

Enjoy this crazy cute gnome puppet craft, complete with a free template to make this paper bag puppet! If you loved this, you’ll also love this paper bag bunny puppet. This post contains affiliate links.

Gnomes are the new elves… And they’re just the cutest little characters for Christmas or any time of year. For that reason, I decided to share with you these adorable gift-delivering (or not) gnome puppets. These paper bag puppets are super fun to play with and a fun craft to try this winter.

This is the type of craft that’ll make you smile – and it’s giftable too! Paper toys are fabulous economical little extras. I’ve even used paper bag puppets as gift wrap for very flat items! You can fit a small book, a piece of jewelry, some treats, stickers, or anything very small and flat.

Use the free printable template to make one or a dozen. Add extra details if you ‘d like. Ours used classic brown lunch bags, however, you can go crazy with colorful lunch bags too!

If you’d like, instead of just using paper, you can mix and match materials. Try felt for the hats and beards, wrapping paper scraps for the gifts, and googly eyes for the eyes, of course.

Kids with decent scissors skills can make these too. Gnome paper bag puppets make a fabulous “craft and play” activity and are a great way to celebrate the holiday season.

Download your gnome puppet template

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How to make a Paper Bag Gnome Puppet

Supplies

Colored paper
Pencil – to trace the template
Scissors
Glue
Markers to add details
Paper bag (13 cm wide)

Instructions

1. Choose your colors for each part of the gnome puppet: face, hat, hat trim, beard, mustache, nose, mittens (or hands), and sleeves. Trace the template onto the correct paper and cut out.

2. Attach the hat trim along the bottom of the hat cutout. Glue a few layers of cardstock scraps on the back of the nose cutout to make it pop out a little. You can also use foam mounting tape for this.

3. Attach the beard to the bottom of the head.

4. Attach the nose and the mustache to the head. Position it a little bit above the beard.

5. Attach the hat to the top of the head, leaving barely enough space for eyes.

6. Cut out a piece of paper for the gnome’s body. It should cover most of the front of the bag, below the flap. You can round it a bit to give your gnome a portly figure.

7. Attach the hands to the sleeves. Attach the shoes cutouts to the bottom of the torso and attach the sleeves to each side.

8. Attach the body of the gnome to the side of the paper bag with the flap – holding the base flap on top. The open side of the bag is the bottom of the puppet, where your hand goes in. If you’d like, you can draw eyes onto your gnome, or add any other details you’d like with markers.