Don't Try This At Home

Raccoon puppet as planned

For Valentine's Day I used The kissing hand by Audrey Penn and looked for a take-home craft to go with it.  "Oh, cutting out a few pieces for some kids - how hard can that be?" I thought to myself.  I love cutting things out.  Gah!  Monday's group canceled which meant I only had my Tuesday group (not realizing that it was the larger one) and Wednesday's individual walk-ins.  I traced and cut out over 500 pieces (although my husband helped with some while waiting for his car to be serviced).  I sent 26 off on Tuesday and hoped I had enough for Wednesday.  I did - phew!  But Monday (and part of Tuesday) was a frantic cutting session, even tripling up the paper, collating all the pieces, putting them in baggies, and inserting them in the paper bags. 

But, you know, it was worth it to see the cute little raccoon puppets come out - eyes crossed, hearts put any-old-where!  The walk-ins had the option to take them home or use the glue sticks I'd put out.  One little boy wanted to take his home, but his mom said they didn't have any glue at home.  As an inveterate and unrepentant craftie, I can't imagine a house without glue!  We might be out of epoxy, E-3000, crazy glue, fabric-tac, white glue, glue stick, gorilla glue, wood glue, glue pen, etc. - but no glue?  No glue at all?  How do they fix things? 

Anyway, here are some pattern pieces, but plan ahead (unlike me) and have your volunteers cut them out.

Pattern pieces for the Kissing Hand/Raccoon puppet.