Love critter puppets

These love critter puppets are a fun kids craft idea for Valentines Day and are also a great way to upcycle paper rolls.

We originally made these cuties back in 2015, but I never actually got around to sharing this tutorial (why ever not?!)

You might also like our pebble love bugs

Meet our love critter pets – Pepper and Patty. They’re a bit like Cupid, flying around with their paper heart wings blowing kisses at everybody they see. Be careful though, if you get hit by a flying kiss from a love critter you’ll likely fall in love with the next person you see!

I love making puppet crafts with kids because they become a DIY toy to inspire imagination and play. Stick puppets are so simple that anyone can make them, and you could even make a cardboard box theatre to put on your own love critter puppet show.

Want to make a love critter puppet of your own? Here’s how…

How to make a love critter puppet craft

You will need:

Recycled paper rolls (paper towel rolls cut in half work fine, as do toilet paper rolls)
Tissue paper
Googly eyes — or use our free printable paper eyes for a more eco-friendly version
Long craft sticks, dowel rods or a chopstick
Double sided tape
Construction paper (we’ve used heavy card stock, but ordinary paper will work fine)
Pipe cleaners (one per critter)

How to:

Cut the paper roll down to the size you’d like your critter to be.

Leaving the tissue paper folded, cut a section off approx 3-4cm in height (about an inch).

Fringe the section of tissue paper leaving around 1cm gap at the top.

Unfold the fringed paper and cut into lengths long enough to wrap around the paper roll. We used four sections in total for our puppets, but this would depend on how tall you want your love critters.

Place a piece of double sided tape (or you could use a glue stick) along each section and stick to the paper roll to look like fur.

Layer the pieces of tissue paper over the top of each other around the paper roll, until you’ve completely covered it in tissue paper fur.

Fold your piece of pink paper in half and sketch a large heart shape for the wings, and four small heart shapes for the antennae.

Stick the eyes, antennae and heart shapes into place using glue or double sided tape.

Stick the craft stick or dowel rod into place with double sided tape (if it’s a chopstick or dowel rod you’ll need to use a hot glue gun to stick into place).