Finger Puppet With LED Nose – Instructions
In this project, you will make a finger puppet out of felt with a light-up nose made
out of an LED. You will sew the LED to a battery holder made out of conductive
fabric tape using conductive thread. When you put the battery in the little holder,
the nose will light up. Decorate as simple or as fancy as you like – we like to use
googly eyes with our puppets.
To make the puppet you will need the following things that are all included in the
PDX Young Makers kits:
 Strip of felt
 2 pieces of conductive tape (1 square, 1 strip)
 1 LED
 1 coin cell battery
 conductive thread
 embroidery floss
 decorations (googly eyes & yarn for hair)
You will also need a needle, some glue, and any more decorations you would like to
add to your puppet. These items are NOT included in our kits for practical reasons.
Got everything? Let’s go.
1. The first step is to make a little pouch for the battery at the bottom of the
puppet with the conductive tape. There will be one piece of tape underneath
the battery that you will connect to the positive (longer) lead of the LED.
There will be another one on top of the battery that you will connect to the
negative lead. Don’t worry if you get these backwards – it will just mean you
put the battery into the pouch facing the other way – it will still work. First,
cut a ¼ inch vertical slit about ½ inch from the bottom of the felt strip. Then
remove the paper from the back of your strip of conductive tape and slide it
from the back side of the felt through the slit about ¼ inch so a small ¼”x ¼”
square of tape is showing on the front of the felt.
2. Remove the paper backing from the square piece of
conductive tape and stick onto the front of the felt
strip about ½” above the small square that came
through the slit. These are the 2 pieces of your battery
holder.
3. Next, fold the strip of felt in half so the top half now covers the conductive
tape, and insert the two wires of the LED into the felt so it becomes the nose.
Put the long wire (positive lead) on the right and the short wire (negative
lead on the left.) Then, on the inside of the felt strip, wrap the wires around
to make loops so that you will use to sew the conductive thread through.
4. Now use the conductive thread to sew from the right (long, positive) LED
wire to the large square of conductive thread. Sew around the wire loop 4-5
times to make sure you get a good connection. Then sew from the left (short,
negative) LED wire loop down to the strip of conductive tape – you will
connect with the part of the strip that is on the outside of the felt piece. This
is important – later when we fold the pouch up, the small square and its
conductive thread will touch ONLY the negative side of the battery and the
large square and its conductive thread will touch ONLY the positive side of
the battery preventing a possible short circuit.
5. Fold the bottom of the felt over so that the strip of conductive tape overlaps
with the square of conductive tape. Then use the non-conductive
embroidery floss to sew a little pouch for the battery to go in. When the
battery is in the pouch the negative side should touch the small square of the
conductive tape strip and the positive side should touch the large square of
conductive tape
6. Next, fold the top of the felt over so that the nose is showing and sew up the
sides with the non-conductive embroidery floss.
7. Finally, decorate at will! Simple or fancy – your puppet will be lots of fun.