Make a sock puppet

Here’s how to make a lovable puppet using a sock – and then transform it into a creature of your choice. 

Girls dressed up in a garden holding sock puppets

Sock puppets are easy to make. Kids will love this simple craft activity, because once the puppet is finished, they can make it talk. If you make several different sock puppets you can act out a little story.

What you need

  • A sock
  • Rigid cardboard (eg from a brown cardboard box) or plastic milk carton
  • Scrap of fabric
  • Needle and thread
  • White glue
  • Scissors
  • Felt tip pens
  • Items to decorate with, such as buttons, ribbons, scraps of material, wool

How to make it

  1. Put the sock on your hand so that your fingers and thumb are in the toe and the back of your wrist is in the heel. To make room for your puppet's mouth, make a slit in the sock between your thumb and fingers.
  2. Take your piece of cardboard or milk carton and cut out a flat oval, measuring 3 inches across and 5 inches from top to bottom at its widest point. This will provide the rigid opening that you’ll use to open the puppet’s mouth.
  3. Do the same with your scrap of fabric. This will cover the inside of the puppet’s mouth.
  4. Glue the fabric oval to your rigid oval with white glue.
  5. After the glue has begun to dry, fold the oval in half the short way, with the fabric on the inside.
  6. Sew the folded oval into your sock. Finally, your puppet can talk.
  7. Now the fun begins! What your puppet becomes depends on you. Think eyes, hair, ears, hats, moustaches, beards, eyebrows, noses, collars, neckties, shirts, dresses…

With thanks to Clover_1 for the lovely photo.

Graphic of a 3-step process of creating a sock puppet