Puppet Pie has a brand new home!

So for the last few weeks I've been slowly putting together this new project of mine called "making a proper website".  Introducing, puppetpie.com!

puppetpie.com

On it you will find.... (insert drum-roll here)

• A shop!  Both one ON the website with checkout through PayPal, and a link to my Etsy shop, if that still fits your fancy. 
• A place to inquire about custom made puppets! I have a form and everything. You can fill it out, and I can read it. I'm pretty proud of the slidebar graphics at the top, too.
• A place to get crafty! There's a section to inquire about having me teach a workshop with a little workshop gallery, and there's even a crafty blog with a crafty crafty craft that you can do at home! I'll try to post at least one of these a month. They should all be puppet-related.
• An About section to complete with a place to watch videos I've done & a photo gallery! 
• And a swanky little contact form so you can email me directly with any funny jokes you'd like me to tell! 

So please go visit!  I'm planning to keep the whole site family friendly so you don't have to worry about your young ones peering over your shoulder. If you want to see the more adult-type puppets, you can still find them in my Etsy shop.  

Valentine Puppet Tutorial

My son also likes to impress his friends. He gets it from me. So every Valentine's Day, we try to come up with something creative & unique, instead of handing out the extremely run-of-the-mill valentines you find at the supermarket.

After wandering around Michael's Valentine's Day section for 30 some-odd minutes,  we came up with the idea of making a clothespin puppet that, when it opened its mouth, you would see that it is eating a tiny, white heart.  Nothing says, "I love you," like cannibalism! And no valentine would be complete without a witty pun, so we came up with something about eating.  (Earlier I had made the mistake opening my mouth before I thought things through and said, "I'm hungry for your love." To which my Aspie said "YEAAAH!"  without realizing that maaaaybe that's not so appropriate for 9-year-olds to be saying to other 9-year-olds to anyone. I convinced him this pun is way better. It's not. But I convinced him it is, and that's what counts.)

What? You want to make some, too!?  Well okay then!  It's a good thing I had my friend Jordan help me take pictures yesterday!  Otherwise we'd all be lost in a sea of not knowing what to do. Whew.

For 30-40 clothespin puppets, you will need:

• 2 sheets of stiff, red felt.  We chose the glittery kind. Because shiny.
• 1 sheet of stiff white felt for the tiny heart inside. We chose glittery. Because double shiny. 
•  30-40 Spring-type clothespins
• A metric ton of non-adhesive googly eyes (pretty sure 60-80 of them equals one metric ton)
• White glue
• A pencil
• Your favorite pair of scissors
• Pinking shears (These is optional. I like it because they make the hearts toothy)
• Paper and a printer (or other writing utensil) for your special message.  

Step 1

Draw or trace your favorite heart shapes over, and over, and over again onto the back of your felt.

The white hearts should be about the size of a dime, or smaller.  You can use the template below that should be about the right size. (Template was an afterthought. Test it out. Tell me if it works)

Step 2

Cut out the hearts in both red and white felt.

Step 3

Cut the big heart in half with pinking (zig-sag) shears.

Step 4

Lay the clothespin on its side, and put a small strip of glue on the top and bottom edges of one side.

Step 5

Place the top & bottom half of your big red heart on the side of the clothespin, being sure that the edges meet where the clothespin opens.  Open the clothespin up while the glue is still wet to be sure they meet in the middle and that you haven't accidentally glue your clothespin closed. That would be a catastrophe.

Step 6

Turn your puppet over, and glue the white heart to the lower jaw of the clothespin puppet. 

Step 7

Slap down some glue & googly eyes any ole place you please. 

Step 8

Om nom nom nom nom

Step 9

Print up your favorite punderful Valentine's Day message and place it in the puppet's mouth!

Ta Da!  

There you have it!  Have fun & have a happy Valentine's Day!

I got one!

Oh little blog.  Sometimes I wonder about you. I think about how you're doing. Wonder if you've made new friends. I don't call, or write for that matter, because I assume you're doing just fine.  But then I thought, what if you want to know what I've been up to? What if you, little blog, think that I haven't been doing anything for the past 10 months!?   I wouldn't want you to think me lazy, little blog.  I've been a little busy--in an extremely excellent way.

I was reading over my resolutions from last year and thought, "nope...didn't do that...nope--not that either...." And as I was going through my checklist of "wow, I make too many resolutions," I discovered one that I actually kept!  I've been making hand puppets. Hand puppets are pretty much all I'm making nowadays. Sometimes I squeeze a finger puppet in when my husband and I sit down to watch an episode of 30 Rock or Parks & Rec, but mostly it's been hand puppets.

So... I made a monkey. (He was originally for an art show in April about Monkeys, Typewriters, and Shakespeare.

And I made a couple of monsters that look a little like this:

And I made a giant lizard in a Zoot Suit (my talented friend, Brianna made the jacket) named Epstein (for a comic book store in Las Vegas)

And I made a sentient bowl of cereal.

And I have lots of other large-scale puppets I'm working on, too!  So maybe I haven't started exercising, and obviously I'm really bad at updating the blog on a regular basis, and I totally don't clean up after myself right away (was I seriously drunk when I wrote that?), and my time-management skills leave a 5-year-old looking on-task & powerful, and I haven't done any craft shows far away from my home, but... I did get one. I made hand puppets. Lots of them. I didn't even post photos of half of the ones I made--and that, little blog, makes me extremely happy.