Paper Bag Monkey Puppet
Craft a paper bag monkey puppet to play with and have fun! When you’re done, check out more paper toy templates to try. This post contains affiliate links.
We’re huge fans of paper puppets in our house. But our favorite kind is paper bag puppets and that’s for a very simple reason: they are easy to animate, affordable to assemble, and oh so cute!
You can craft these using standard lunch bags or upgraded party bags. Since the monkey is brown, classic Kraft bags are spot-on for this one making it even easier!
Not only does this paper monkey puppet make a fabulous DIY toy, but you can even fill it and use it as a favor bag for a birthday party! We did that with another paper bag puppet (coming soon) for A’s birthday and it worked out quite well. The puppet was upside down but it was cool to have the bag itself double as a favor.
It’s also a fun kids’ craft, and since the shapes are relatively simple to cut, you can have preschoolers cut them out for scissors practice. Or, precut them and allow kids to assemble.
When you’re done, put on a show and try making some other paper bag puppets. The paper bag dragon puppet is perfect for a fantasy twist, or learn the letter C with a cat paper bag puppet template. Then give the paper bag bunny puppet a go too! I have more coming so stay tuned!
What you need:
- The template – download it at the end of this post.
How to make your paper bag monkey puppet
1. Prepare 2 or 3 different shades of brown colored craft papers for your monkey paper bag puppet.
Trace the tail, head, hair and outer ears on darker brown paper. Trace the face and stomach on the lighter shade of brown paper or Kraft paper, and trace the inner ears and cheeks on pink paper. Cut out your parts.
2. Glue the inner ears onto the outer ears. Glue the hair to the top of the head. Prepare two eyes as well – or use googly eyes.
3. Glue the ears in position on either side of the head. They can be placed slightly higher than center.
4. Glue the face cutout in the center of the head.
5. Attach the eyes (DIY or googly) and cheeks onto your paper bag monkey’s face.
6. Use a marker to draw the mouth and nose of your monkey. Keep it simple: a small smile, and a very rounded W with a short center point for the nose.
7. Trace the main body of your bag on darker brown paper(unless you cut the stomach from a lighter brown paper) and cut it out.
8. Glue it to the front of your bag, tucking it under the bottom flap of the bag (that becomes the top of your puppet).
9. Glue the tail to the back of the bag so that it sticks out on the left or right of your puppet. Glue the stomach cutout to the front of the bag.
10. Glue your head to the bottom side of the bag/the top flap of the puppet to complete your paper bag monkey puppet.
Download the free paper bag monkey puppet template
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Share the love! Send this paper bag monkey puppet to a friend who will love it, share it to your favorite crafting group on Facebook, or hit the P icon to pin it for later!
