Who else is looking forward to St Patrick’s Day? We just adore all the cute leprechaun crafts and rainbow crafts we get to indulge in at this time of year! To start off our St Paddy’s Day crafting this year, we’ve made these super fun LEPRECHAUN GNOME FINGER PUPPETS!
These cute St Patrick’s Day puppets are a great combination of cute gnomes and cheeky leprechauns, in one! What’s not to love? To make it really easy for you to join in the fun I’ve made a FREE PRINTABLE TEMPLATE for you to download too.
These Leprechaun finger puppets are really easy to make and play with. We love their wooly beards and big noses! The template comes with an oval paper nose, or you can use a pom pom instead if you prefer. Both ways are cute!
This St Patrick’s Day craft template is completely free of charge and comes in full colour and also black and white, so that you can decorate it yourself. (Scroll down to the bottom of this post to get your leprechaun template.)
When you’ve finished making your leprechaun puppets, it’s really easy to make them walk along. All you need to do is pop your fingers through the holes and wiggle them about! We had great fun making ours jump and leap about and trying to give them cute Irish accents!
While you’re here take a peek at our other St Patrick’s Day crafts too. We’ve got lots of fun ideas to choose from.
Adorable Gnome Leprechaun Puppets For St Patrick’s Day
Gnome Puppet Craft Supplies:
- Free Printable Leprechaun Template (Get yours at the bottom of this tutorial.)
- Printer Cardstock
- Orange Yarn
- Optional: Pink Pom Poms
- Optional: Colouring Pens/Pencils
- Scissors
- Glue
- 1 Inch Hole Puncher
How to Make St Patrick’s Day Finger Puppets
1 – Download and print your free leprechaun gnome template onto cardstock. You can choose the ready coloured template or colour in your own. (Get your template at the bottom of this tutorial.)
2 – If you’re using the black and white puppet template, then colour it in. Then cut out your template pieces.
3 – Fold the body in half and glue it together. This makes it stronger and more robust for playing with. Then cut out the finger holes with your hole puncher. We used a 1 inch punch.
4 – Glue the hat band, buckle and lucky shamrock onto the leprechaun’s hat.
5 – To make the wooly beard for your leprechaun, wrap some orange yarn around your four fingers about 20 times.
6 – Slide the loop of yarn off of your fingers and tie a separate short piece of yarn around it to hold the strands together.
7 – Opposite your tie, cut through all of the loops of yarn. Trim the excess off your tie too.
8 – Glue the beard to the top of the body. I used UHU glue because it dries so quickly and we didn’t want to wait, but ordinary white school glue like Elmer’s will work too if you can leave it to dry for a bit.
9 – Glue the hat on top of the beard and finish off your leprechaun with a nose. You can use the paper nose from the template or glue on a pom pom.
10 – Now you can have fun making it move by sliding your fingers through the holes. I hope your little leprechaun gnome finger puppets aren’t too mischievous and cheeky!
If you’ve enjoyed these gnome puppets and would like some more gnome crafts you might like:
- Gnome Easter Eggs
- Rustic Gnomes
- Or how about a Paint Your Own Garden Gnome Kit?
More Fun St Patrick’s Day Crafts For Kids:
