DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Bag Dove Craft
contributed by Leanne Guenther
The dove is a great symbol for many bible stories and for a peace theme.
You can turn the dove craft into nearly any bird simply by coloring in the template. Try making a bluebird or a robin!
Materials:
- a paper lunch bag (white would be good for this project, but brown is ok too)
- white paint or white paper (or color of your choice if you're making a different colored bird).
- a printer,
- some crayons,
- scissors,
- glue,
- paper for the printer
Optional:
- big wiggly eyes
Print the Template:
- Print out the template of choice (color or b&w)
- Color (as required) and cut out the template pieces.
Get Familiar with Your Paper Bag:
- I'm going to walk through this slowly. Look at your paper bag.
- It should be closed and flat like a piece of paper. Just like when they are brand new.
- On one side, it's all smooth. This will be the BACK of your puppet.
- It's important that all the kids get the back and front straight at the beginning!
- On the other side there's a
flippy tab (which is typically the bottom of the bag when you're carrying your lunch around...)
- This flippy tab will be the HEAD.
- Lift the flippy tab up a
bit. Underneath of the tab will be the mouth,
- When the child puts her hand in the bag, she'll be able to make the puppet talk.
- Look at the rest of the front of the bag. (The 3/4 or so of the bag below the part with the flippy tab) This will be the BODY.
- Look at the sides of the
bag. There should be a FLAP of paper.
- We'll be slipping the wings into this flap.
- If the kids goof and glue the wings onto the front or back of the bag, it isn't a big deal.
- OK, now that we're comfy with our bags, let's craft!

Assemble your puppet:
- Cover the paper bag with white paper (just glue it on and trim) or paint the paper bag white and let dry.
- Glue the feather tuft to the top of the HEAD
- Glue the eyes onto the HEAD just under the feathers. If you like, you can use wiggly eyes instead of the paper template pieces.
- Glue the beak under the eyes. It will likely hang down over a little bit of the BODY. Make sure you just put glue on top of the beak (where it touches the HEAD) so you don't end up gluing the mouth shut.
- Glue the wings into the FLAP.
- Glue the feet onto the bottom of the BODY
- Glue the tail onto the BACK.
Templates:
- Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
- Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).
Template 1: (color) or (B&W)
Template 2: (color) or (B&W)
Print friendly version of these instructions