Peek-A-Boo Toys

TOYS

Who loves hide & peek? Babies and toddlers will go gaga over these Peekaboo Toys! (But it also cheers up certain grown ups very effectively.) These printable jointed dolls come in two template designs - a cat and a dog, but you can also easily create your own animal faces based on this basic template.

These animals are very shy at first, hiding their faces with their paws, but if you pull their feet they will play Peek-a-boo! We created this nifty mechanism to move the arms over the faces, which is a little bit like the Jumping Jack style of jointed dolls where the hidden mechanism works by pulling one part.

How to Make
These Peekaboo Toys

You need
printed templates, some cardboard sheets (a cereal box or tea box thickness), 4 brass fasteners for each toy.

1
Print and cut the template and trace the shapes onto a cardboard sheet. Make a hole where they’re marked with an X in the template. You can use a small hole punch or press an empty ball point pen through, against thick cardboard etc.
You can draw the faces and other features on them at this stage or do it after all the shapes are assembled.

2
Connect the two arm shapes with the first fastener, but don’t close it at the back yet.

3
Insert it through the hole in the face shape. You now have 2 arms and a face connected by one fastener. Close the fastener at the back. The image shows front and back of this stage.

4
Now connect each arm to the two small shapes as in the photo.

5
Now gather the ends of two small shapes and align the hole. Insert one fastener through the hole in the body and then through the hole shown in the picture. Close the fastener.

6
It should look like this from front and back.

7
Yay! you’re nearly done. I have taped a small folded cardboard piece at the back of the face as in the photo. You can do the same if you like. It helps in holding the toy when you play. Have fun decorating them if you haven’t done so already.