Ladybird Tuesday - Easy to Make Puppets

This week for Ladybird Tuesday I have another book from Series 633 - Hobbies. Easy-to-make Puppets was published in 1973 and features instructions for a variety of different puppets, as well as ideas for scenery, props and even a simple puppet booth.

The book begins with a basic elephant puppet made from a thin sheet of card through which you post your finger to make the elephant's trunk. The book then carries on with ideas for a huge range of different puppets, made from household items including plastic bottles, handkerchiefs, apples and yoghurt pots. The designs are all simple, and yet some are really clever!

The puppets increase in complexity as you progress through the book, finishing with papier mache moulded heads and handsewn glove puppets. You could put on a really professional style puppet show with some of these.

The puppets in the book tend to focus on characters that featured in children's games and stories at the time, like Red Indians and robbers. Nowadays as well as traditional fairytales children would probably enjoy making puppets for their favourite Disney films and television characters. I know that my children love printing out pictures of their favourite characters and sticking them to lollipop sticks to make very simple puppets, and now I'm inspired to try something a bit more complicated!

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood