Garden Animal Finger Puppets Free Pattern
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Are your little ones curious about all the tiny creatures that live in the garden? Then they’ll love these garden animal finger puppets. The pattern is easy (very detailed) and completely free. I might do a pattern shop in the future, but for now I felt that I at least share them this way. This is one of my favorite finger puppet patterns :) With this beginner-friendly project, you can bring nature right into your home or classroom. Create your own felt bees, ladybugs, snails, or birds, and let kids explore the garden's beauty through play and imagination. If you want to expand your finger puppet collection, check out my free finger puppet patterns.
Happy Puppet-Making!
If you want to explore more free felt patterns, visit Freebies with its 50 free felt craft patterns.
Tips for Making Animal Puppets
These garden animal felt finger puppets are simple to create. It is stitched entirely by hand, using a running stitch, French knot, backstitch, and whip stitch. Looking for help with embroidery stitches? Visit the post 9 hand embroidery stitches for felt to learn more. Gather some felt scraps, scissors, a needle, and floss from around your home, and enjoy making this animal finger puppet craft.
Tips for Working with Felt
TIP best felt glue: Have you wondered what is the best felt glue? Read the findings of a test comparing 8 different adhesives for felt.
TIP best felt scissors: Curious what are the best scissors to cut felt? Learn the secrets of the best scissors for cutting perfect felt shapes in Felt cutting made easy.
TIP for cutting felt: If you would like to learn tips on cutting out felt pieces, you can read my post about 6 techniques for cutting felt shapes.
TIP tracing on felt: Learn how to trace the pattern on felt with these four tracing techniques.
Materials & Supplies for Garden Animal Finger Puppets
Garden Animal Finger Puppet Free Printable Template - to download the file, subscribe to the FunClothCrafts newsletter. You will find a password to the subscriber's Free Downloads Vault in the newsletter.
Felt scraps (find great felt at Benzie Design or find more buying options in the Types of Felt section of How to Sew Felt blog post): felt colors based on your choice (I used ivory, brown, blond, pink, white, blue, orange, red hair color)
Small or embroidery scissors (KAI 5 1/2 inch Embroidery Scissors or Fiskars Stitchers Scissors No. 5 are the ones I use)
Embroidery thread: matching colors to the darker tone of felt, black, and white
A glue that works on felt (optional - Beacon Fabri-Tac glue works well)
Garden Animal Finger Puppets Free Instant Download
How to Make Garden Animal Finger Puppets
Let's start creating easy and simple animal finger puppets. This finger puppet set includes eight garden animals: butterfly, caterpillar, grasshopper, honeybee, snail, bird, and ladybug puppets. You'll need to print the finger puppet template. Once you have your template, you'll need to follow the pattern's steps to create your felt finger puppets.
Use the free garden animal finger puppet template to cut out all pattern pieces from felt. Visit the section above to learn how to download the free felt pattern.
Eyes - with one-strand white floss, sew with a whip stitch around the edges of the eyes to attach them. Using the French knot, embroider the eye
pupils with three strands of black embroidery thread (wrap the thread 3 times around the needle).
Tip: You could use self-adhesive googly eyes instead of drawing the eyes. I would only opt for this option if older kids use the finger puppet.
Following the template, each garden animal (butterfly, caterpillar, grasshopper, honeybee, snail, bird, and ladybug) will have different next steps.
Finally, place the butterfly finger puppet’s front and back together (hold with your fingers or pins). Begin joining the pieces with a running stitch close to the edge (use two strands of embroidery floss).
Step 1 - Cut all felt shapes from felt
Step 2 - Sew and embroider eyes
Step 3 - Example of the next steps: embroidery of the snail shell
Step 4 - Following the template, sew the front and back body pieces together
Bug animal finger puppets
Garden Animal Finger Puppet with Free Printable Template
Make Your Easy, DIY animal finger puppets
Free Animal Finger Puppets Pattern Conclusions
In conclusion, I hope you and your little ones have fun bringing these garden animals to life! Kids may be buzzing along with a felt bee, letting a ladybug crawl across their finger, or helping a grasshopper hide in the “grass.” These finger puppets are sure to spark smiles and creativity. They’re perfect for storytelling, pretend play, or even learning about garden creatures in a hands-on way. Best of all, they’re easy to make and free. Don’t forget to download your free pattern and share your creations with me :)
Be sure to visit this website for free embroidery and sewing tips and tricks to help you as you stitch my patterns. For round-up posts of felt patterns, visit the felt crafts category on Fun Cloth Crafts.
Let’s craft together!
XO, Anna
