Ahoy shipmates!
My name's Katy-Anne.
Inspired by the life on board gallery at the Merseyside Maritime Museum,
I'm going to show you how you can make this fun puppet sailor and steamboat craft activity,
using materials you can find at home
All aboard! Let's get started.
You will need:
a clean and dry tetrapak juice or milk carton,
a cardboard toilet roll tube,
duct tape,
assorted string and wool,
coloured electrical tape,
a ruler and pencil,
a darning needle,
craft knife and a pair of scissors,
craft glue,
coloured card,
felt for decoration.
a sharpie marker and coloured pens,
a wooden clothes peg,
some bamboo skewers,
and optional paints, ideally oil based with paint brushes.
take your milk or juice carton
the top of the carton will be the bow of the ship
and we'll make a hole in the deck of the ship for the puppet to sit in.
Draw a rectangle on the top of the carton with a gap on each side,
and cut it out with a craft knife.
Get an adult to help you with this step.
Then remove the lid of the carton,
we'll use it later to make some portholes for the ship.
Now to decorate your ship.
You can use duct tape to cover the ship like this.
And add extra colours with electrical tape
like this
or you could paint your carton,
ideally use an oil-based paint,
as it will stick to the carton better than a water-based paint.
Now to make the portholes.
Use the lid to draw out some circles on your coloured card,
here I have used the side of another tetrapack carton
as it has a nice silver effect.
Cut them out and glue them onto the side of the ship
Now for the funnels.
Cut the cardboard toilet roll tube in half
and decorate.
You can cover with electrical tape like this
or you can use paint.
Use black tape to get that authentic funnel look
by wrapping it around the top edge,
then folding into the centre of the tube.
Glue around the bottom edge of the funnels and attach to the carton.
It's starting to look shipshape!
To make the sail, cut out a rectangle of coloured card.
Make a small hole at the top and bottom of the sail using the darning needle.
Then make the holes bigger using a bamboo skewer.
Insert the bamboo skewer through the sail holes,
and position the sail like so.
Use the darning needle to make a hole at the front of the ship.
Insert the bamboo skewer to position the sail,
then glue it into place.
Now to add the rope and flags.
Take the darning needle and make two holes for the rope to pass through.
Then use a bamboo skewer to make the holes bigger.
To make the rope cut a piece of string about 50 centimetres long,
thread the needle,
and tie a knot at the other end.
Push the needle through one of the holes and pull it up through to the knot.
Loop the string around the top of the sail,
and down to the other hole.
Mark the middle of the string with a pen,
and mark the end by the second hole.
This will help us to position the flags equally on each side.
Unloop the string.
Cut small pieces of coloured tape,
and attach to the string by looping it back on itself.
Cut the tape into a triangle shape.
Repeat this step by adding flags at regular intervals.
Loop the string around the mast again.
Thread the needle through the other hole.
Tie a knot so that the rope is tight.
Trim off any excess string.
Your ship is now complete!
Time to make the puppet.
Take your clothespeg and draw a face on the peg.
You can keep it simple or you can glue on wool to add features like hair and a beard.
To make the clothes first apply some glue to the middle of the peg,
then carefully wrap wool or string around each prong to make each trouser leg.
At the end of the leg glue at the bottom,
and trim off the excess.
then repeat for the other leg.
When you're done you can start on the jacket
if you want to make stripes wrap two different colours of wool at the same time.
Glue into place as before.
Trim off the excess.
Now to give him some arms.
Cut out two rectangles of felt and two small ovals of card to make hands.
fold the rectangle in half lengthways, add some glue.
then place the hand at one end
and sandwich the arm together.
Now glue the arms to the puppet.
To make the hat cut a thin rectangle of felt,
and wrap it around the head to get a measurement.
Glue into a circle headband shape,
cut out a circle of felt and glue it to the top of the headband.
Now glue the hat to the head of the puppet.
Now to make your peg sailor into a puppet.
Push a bamboo skewer into the gap between the prongs of the peg.
On the side of the boat, underneath the hole, cut a small vertical slit.
Insert the skewer into the slit
and put your puppet into the hole of the ship.
You can move your puppet using the stick
and create your very own nautical puppet show.
Ahoy shipmates!