EZPZ – Quick Craft Project–Origami Finger Puppets

My wife doesn’t work on Mondays, so if we don’t have any family adventures planned, that’s often the day when I can have a little alone time–you know, time to do something for me.

Like yesterday: after helping get the kids dressed and fed, I went out in the backyard and built two raised garden beds, swinging a pick to break up the rocky ground and create a level area for our future vegetable gardens, and bolting together a redwood frame to contain the soil that would nurture our crops.

After building and digging for a few hours, I helped feed the kids lunch.  Then it was back outside to overload my pickup with almost a ton of concrete landscaping blocks from the side of the yard where we will be abandoning the old vegetable garden to make way some for some tall plants to screen off the view of the neighbor’s hideous yard.  After that I just had to drive the concrete blocks across town, unload them at the house of friends who were landscaping their yard, stop off at Home Depot and load the truck with dirt and manure, and then head home to help feed, bathe, and put the kids to bed.

With the kids finally in bed, I scarfed a burrito from the taqueria around the corner that easily weighed two pounds, and washed it down with half a bottle of Pinot Noir.

It was ten o’clock by then.  What was I to do with the rest of my evening?  A lesser person might have watched some TV or gone to bed.  But the true renaissance man uses every precious moment to enrich the lives of himself and those around them.

I thought I would top off the day with a little light crafting.

So I turned to the HP Creative Studio for some ideas about how I could use my printer for some fun projects that would hone my dexterity and test my eye for detail.  I mean, that’s what printers are for, right?

I quickly set my sights on a project that looked like it would not only provide me with some meditative crafting time, but would also entertain my twin toddler girls: origami finger puppets.

The idea is quite simple and ingenious.  Print out a page with an anime-style creature on an ornate background, and fold it into a little finger puppet.  And if you are better than me at reading instructions after drinking several glasses of wine, you will quietly marvel at the transformation of a piece of paper into a whimsical character sure to amuse and delight any child, rather than cussing and fuming as you fold and re-fold the paper until it’s as supple and limp as well-worn calfskin glove.

Eventually I was able to properly fold the paper, and the resulting critters looked more or less like those pictured on the website.

My toddler twins love the little bear and bunny puppets that I made for them, and insist that I perform extensive puppet drama for their entertainment.  They also like putting the puppets on their own hands and making them dance and, of course, do battle with one another.

Although I was a bit frustrated while doing this project, I was happy with the end results.  Older kids would also have fun with this one, once they had the coordination (and sobriety, presumably) to do the folding themselves.  There are a whole slew of other 3-D paper sculpture projects on the website that look like they would be fun for bigger kids or parents with more patience than me.