DIY Love Monsters Craft

Today Emily of Making With Mommy is back to share another easy Valentine’s Day project — Love Monsters Puppets! Plan on making these tomorrow! 

Happy season of love, everyone! I love Valentine’s Day and am a big fan of Valentine’s Day crafts. But, I also get tired of making different kinds of hearts pretty quickly. These Valentine’s Day Love Monster puppets are a fun way to put a different twist on Valentine’s Day! They are a great craft for toddlers and big kids alike and use just a few simple materials. Read on to learn how to make your own!

Materials Needed:

Paper lunch sacks
Washable or acrylic paint
Construction paper and/or craft foam
Googly eyes and/or hole reinforcer stickers
Pipe cleaners
Valentine’s Day stickers, pom poms and other decorations
Hot Glue Gun

How To:

Step 1: Paint your bags. Use either washable paint or acrylic paint to paint your paper lunch bags. You want to paint the side of the bag where the bottom of the bag is – this way the monster will function as a puppet when complete! We used reds, purples and pinks on ours. We also stamped some contrasting color polka dots on a few of our bags! You and your kids can decide to paint them however you like.

Step 2: Cut out your teeth! Using white construction paper or craft foam, cut out some different shapes for monster teeth! We used a combination of rectangular and triangular teeth on our monsters.

Step 3: Glue on your monster teeth. Lift up the bottom of the bag slightly, and use your glue gun to glue the monster teeth underneath the bottom of the bag (see picture for help). When using your puppet, you can move this part with your hand to make it look like your monster is talking.

Step 4: Create your monster’s eyes! You can either choose to glue googly eyes onto your monster, or use hole reinforcer stickers as eyes! I love the stickers for my son, who is 2.5, because he can do this step himself and doesn’t need help with the glue. Give your monster as many, or as few eyes as you want!

Step 5: Give your monster some arms! We created arms two different ways for our monsters. One option is to use a pipe cleaner as an arm. The other option is to cut a strip of construction paper and fold it accordion style. Unfold it and this can become an arm, too! Open up the sides of the bag and glue the arms into this space (see picture for help).

Step 6: Add the finishing touches! Use construction paper, stickers, pom poms and other supplies to give your monsters any finishing details you want! We gave each of ours different horns and one got a fun pom pom nose!

I hope you can find some time to create with your little one this Valentine’s Day season! We love being here and sharing crafts with The Mama Notes! You can see more Valentine’s Day craft ideas from us at @makingwithmommy!