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; 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!

Five Catholic wooden peg dolls on a white background.

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 just draw on a simple face with a Sharpie marker. It’s okay 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 a nun peg doll, one square black felt piece, one half circle black felt piece, and a peg painted to look like a person.

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

glue). Then, glue the half circle over the head. The very center of the straight side goes at the top of the forehead, and hangs down on either side of the face. I glued it down all the way and glued it down kind of 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.

Pieces to make Mother Teresa doll, one white half-circle felt piece with blue lines, one white square felt piece with lines and a notch out of the top, and a peg painted to look like Mother Teresa.

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.

Fully finished Mother Teresa doll on a white background.

Here are the little pieces I used for the one with the weird Nun hat.

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One blue square felt piece, four smaller white felt pieces in triangles, one half-circle, and one rhombus, with a nun peg doll.

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

Nun peg doll with base of hat on a white background.

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

Fully finished nun peg doll on a white background.

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 a while 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 they are when Mass is over. 🙂

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

Four painted priest peg dolls with different colored copes on a white background.

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.