How to Make Nun Peg Dolls for Catholic Kids

Find all of my peg doll resources here!

This is a super cute and fun toy for Catholic kids. You don’t have to special order expensive wooden peg doll parts to make these, and you don’t have to be a great painter to pull this off either. Trust me, you can craft these adorable Catholic peg people- you really can. And you know what? These fun little Nun dolls make great Mass toys for little girls!

To make these, just go get the big bag of “doll pins” from your local craft store. Ya, they’re maybe not quite as nice as some of those fatter peg people things, but those are a lot more expensive and in a lot of cases you have to special order them. The doll pins work just fine. Paint them with some cheap acrylic paints skin colored. You can either paint on a face, or else just draw on a simple face with a sharpie marker. It’s ok if they just look like a smiley face- really, it is. 🙂 Then, paint on the basic colors of their habit (see picture below). When you’re finished with the painting part, you can seal them with Mod Podge or similar sealer, but you don’t have to. It will just help them last longer.

I cut their clothes out of assorted colors of felt. Different peg dolls can be different sizes, so just play with it a little until you get their clothes the right size to wrap around. When you get one right, use it as a pattern to cut out all the others. Here’s what our pieces looked like before we glued them together:

First, glue the rectangle around the waist as the skirt. (We used hot

glue). Then, glue the half circle on over the head. The very center of the straight side goes at the top of the forehead, and hang down on either side of the face. I glued it down all the way down and glued it down kinda bunchy in the back so the kids can’t take it off and it doesn’t flap.

For the Mother Teresa looking peg doll, here’s what it looks like before it’s glued together.

Again, the rectangle goes on first, then the head veil. I used a paintbrush and some blue acrylic paint to add these stripes, but you could also use blue puffy fabric paint, or glue some blue string.

For the one with the weird Nun hat, here are the little pieces I used.

First, glue on the half-circle looking shape on the head straight-side-up, like so:

Then add a little triangle to each side, like this.

They can all be a little different. Search for pictures of different orders of Nuns online before starting, and you can try to make them match. I made these awhile ago, so I don’t remember what orders I based these on, but for sure if I make more we’ll be making some Carmelites! 🙂 How did I miss them?!

I have given these as presents at Birthday parties before, and they’re always well received. Just make sure you reserve this idea for your Catholic friends. 😉

Have fun with your little Nun peg dolls! Warning: If you take these to Mass to let your daughters play with them, lots of people sitting around you will tell you how cute the are when Mass is over. 🙂

Also, don’t miss my post on how to make Priest peg dolls! More little Catholic peg dolls to come later this week. Stay tuned!

Find all of my peg doll resources here!

Related Posts:

• How to make Priest peg dolls
• Make Nun Puppets from Paper Bags
• Make a Nun Costume
• Make a Mother Teresa Costume
• Embroider Nun dolls