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!

catholic peg dolls

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:

pieces to make nun peg doll

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.

how to make peg dolls

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.

mother teresa peg doll

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

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pieces to make a nun peg doll

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

how to make a nun peg doll

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

how to nun peg doll

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!

priest peg dolls craft

Find all of my peg doll resources here!

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Comments

  1. So creative, Lacy! I’ll be making a Mother Teresa peg doll for a Godly Play story later this year, so you have given me some ideas to work with.: )

  2. This is so ridicuously cute I can’t believe it!!! My daughter is a new nun…franciscan/domincan, I will have to make her one!! Thank you for all your great ideas! Many of our Faith FOrmation classes at our church use your site….thanks!!!

  3. The priest peg dolls would be perfect in a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium. A cool guy toy, too.

  4. Cute idea! Random fact- if you search yahoo images for “nun” a picture of you wearing a nun costume comes up.