You Pick

Ok world,

In an attempt to keep myself creating I need you to help me push past the wall. I'm good on hand puppets--I have plenty of things to work on there--but in the hours of the day/night when my mind can't handle sitting at a sewing machine and isn't responisble enough to use a dremel, I need to know what to do.

I have 100% wool felt (with all these schmancy vegetable dyes and the whathaveyou--it's quite nice) & I'm not sure what to make with them. I'm thinking kid-friendly stuff with the 100% wool felt and I'll save the acrylic felt (of which I still have gobs) for things like microwaves and nunchucks.

But I need your ideas. This is yet another Puppet Pie Call To Duty. Please post (anonymously if you really want to) what puppet you think I should make. It doesn't mean I'll make it--it means that I'll really consider making it.

Things to keep in mind:

1. I won't make a penis, boogers or poop. (This is a classy operation)
2. I probably won't make a lightbulb or a peanut anytime soon.
3. I'm not an engineering genius--keeping shapes simple is good.
4. It's possible I've done it before. Look at my flickr or my sold section on Etsy to check.
5. Just because I've done it before, doesn't mean I won't do it again.
6. Put it in the comments so I have a place to find it. Telling me on twitter doesn't suffice.


What will you get if I choose to make your idea? Bragging rights. And if you're the first person to have ever given me the idea, I'll mention you in puppet's description.

Where is summer going?

At the beginning of the summer I had several projects laid out for me.

1) make a few videos
2) make some more hand puppets
3) animate *something*
4) finger puppets galores
5) maybe enroll the boy-child into swim lessons

I thought, Wow, I've got a lot of time to kill this summer!

Now its June 7th. Officially 1 week into June. We leave for vacations (and puppetry festivals!) for most of July (anyone want to cat-sit?). That means I only have three weeks left before my time to work on projects comes to an end! Yikes? Yikes, indeed.

First priority- Custom orders. I've got two to finish by the end of June. Totally doable.

Second Priority- Etsy video. To be honest, I'll likely do this sometime this week--before the two custom orders are done. I need to get it up as soon as possible--it's just a matter of writing out an acceptable dialog and then turning on the camera. Writing the acceptable dialog is the difficult part.

Third Priority- Make hand puppets! I've been stalling on making more hand puppets for my etsy shop for a long time, now. It probably has something to do with the fact that I need to clean my craft space.

Fourth Priority- I've been wanting to make some videos with my finger puppets. I want to make them elaborate, but I don't know where to go from there. I just know: Elaborate.

Throughout everything- Finger puppets. This is something I can do every day. I could probably make gazillions of these in a month, but to be honest, it's a matter of not knowing what to make sometimes. I mostly rely on my friends to tell me what they want me to make--if I get inspired from that, usually it's a winner (i.e. safety cone). But if I could, my brain would just make bunnies and puppies and kittens and mice (that, let's be honest, all look roughly the same when I make them). So if you have ideas, go ahead and leave them in the comments. I might make it. I'm trying not to make too many elaborate finger puppets right now, mostly because the price-points are more than anyone is really willing to pay for 2" of felt right now. And hey, I still might make it if it's a completely awesome idea.

If you were a newsletter, what would you say?

This shouldn't be a very big deal. I've written newsletters before that have gone out to 400 different households. A simple puppetry guild newsletter is easy, right? I mean, I write for my descriptions on Etsy all the time, it's all puppetry related, it should be a piece of cake to master a simple newsletter.

It should be.

For some reason it's not.

Our previous guild president, Ed Rogers, has been amazing and has written them for I don't even know how long. For June, he handed the newsletter duties off to me. It's about time I stepped up, anyway. And this is something I probably should have had written several weeks ago. I've been trying to second-guess what people might want to read.

When writing descriptions for my puppets, or writing puppet shows--or even writing this--I do it from a standpoint of "fooey on you and your mom, this is for me." But when writing for the newsletter, I feel as though it's selfish to write for myself. Let me rephrase--It's inappropriate to be selfish and write for myself when writing a newsletter for the guild. I think.

On the internet, you have a choice whether or not to keep reading. And you have somewhere else to go....but guild newsletter readers are hostage to my every whim. Which gives me all kinds of wonderful ideas for things to put in the newsletter, but with my sense of humor--it would only be funny to me. Like...nobody wants to see my grocery list there, however, I really want to put it in. Like...really badly. No really, I need to get Ziploc baggies and the guild needs to know.

Maybe I'll have to write a few horrible articles in order to get it out of my system.

If I do, I may post them here.

I think another thing holding me back is my lack of experience. Most of these puppeteers have at *lease* 20 years on me. Most of them have 40+ years on me. I know, I know, everyone can teach someone something. I should teach them about how much I need Ziploc baggies.

So if you were to read a puppetry guild's real newsletter, what do you want to read about?

I give short notice because I'm short

So I've had this lovely plan for weeks: I'll have a sale that I advertise in advance in many places. That works, right?

It does if I remember to actually advertise it in important places...like my blog--which I know at least 33 people pretend they read. One is probably my mom. (Hi Mom. Glad you liked the flowers!). So hopefully someone reads it before...well, 8 hours from now.

So here's the deal....I'm going to have a TP party. That silly Toilet Paper puppet that my friend Cynthia made me make is so darn popular (not poopular, i refuse to say poopu--dag nabbit)

Anyway, it's been added to people's favorites 44 times since I listed him like 2 months ago. So I figured I'd make a bunch and sell those only at a lower price--because obviously they're lower quality. I mean...one has googly eyes for crying out loud. But I'm also adding a bunch of other swell puppets, too. Puppets I haven't even photographed yet, they're so amazingly awesome!

If you come to my blogtv show on Tuesday nights at 8pm PST, then you've probably seen the weird-butt puppets I've made for this, but other than that, I'm not giving anything away! Nope. You totally won't know that I'm going to list grilled steak to be companion to my raw steak. And you totally won't even expect a super kitten with a mask and EVERYTHING. (All caps required). And I'm definitely not telling you about the amazing carrot-bunny that I made. Because I did. I made one. It's amazing.

So....anyway. Um... My cat had 3 kittens and they're really cute. This is pirate. That's all.

I really have nothing important to say

Usually when I post to this here bloggity blog, I have some kind of idea I wish to express. Not this time, friend. This time the only idea I have in my brain is "wow, has it really been a whole month since I've posted? What the shibbidiboo have I been doing???"

Oh...right. In-school residency to 4th graders. wow. yeah. Privileged 4th graders at that....150 privileged 4th graders. Save us all.

It made me really appreciate my 1st graders. That's not to say that 4th graders are horrible...their puppets turned out beautifully--and one-on-one, I fully enjoy the conversations I have with 4th graders. Even in small groups....but you get 150 of them and all bets are off. Even in groups of 30. This is why I didn't become a teacher.

there were 5 groups of 30 kids...each did a different type of puppetry (Shadow, Overhead projector, hand, rod, & marionettes). Thankfully I didn't head this thing up. I'd have made them all draw faces on their fingers with a sharpie and called it temporary finger puppetry. "The good news, kids, is that you get to take your finger puppets home with you!--provided you don't wash your hands"

That went on for 3 weeks. At the end of the 3 weeks I was physically and emotionally spent. Teaching is tiring! Teaching 150 4th graders AND our 28 first graders all in the same day? WOW. Yeah, tiring.

I was--and still am--however, thankful for the job and the experience. It was neat to watch it somehow get pulled off. And in the end, the kids did a good job on their puppets and on their performances.

So...I guess that's where I've been...kinda. I also attended the Phoenix Improv Festival & did the National Day of Puppetry (how did I not post that?!) But I suppose I'll talk about that another time? (I probably won't really...) I mean...yes, I'll most certainly talk about that another time!

It's here!

On my birthday. *squee*

Click To Play

You can also read the article here that has a link to an impromptu interview we did about 18 months ago.

Tomorrow Is My Birthday.

That is all.