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!

This wasn't it....But it's Exciting!!!

The big thing I was awaiting wasn't this, but this is one thing I was awaiting! My finger puppet kits have arrived at the Maker Shed! (Craft: & Make: Magazine's online store)

They said that the kit is by Stacey Rebecca...implying that either I have no last name or that Rebecca is my last name. I think people have a problem with my name. Poor Stacy Wolf. I'm not sure if I should ask them to fix it. I'm just kind-of excited that I have a product ID number. Although the free-art non-consumer in me is saddened by that...although the desire to pay mortgages and eat food and send my child to school is again excited about it. Hooray consumerism!

So go buy my hard work from someone else! And then they'll buy my hard work from ME! Hooray for the man!

being proactive instead of reactive

Of all of the puppets that I've made, I think this frog might be my favorite. I think one of the reasons for that is because I didn't get to keep him for very long. He was shown at a local art gallery in '06 and I wasn't expecting him to sell. I'd made him out of the leftover fabric from a dinosaur costume that I'd made for my son for Halloween that year. At least I think that's where the fabric came from....

I was telling a friend of mine how I am sad that I haven't kept a few key puppets in my building career...the frog, the Phoenix Coyotes Puppets, and a bunny or two. My friend said, "Well, why can't you just recreate the frog?" I thought of a long list of unreasonable reasons to not remake him, one reason being, "I don't have the same fleece." Then thought that I should at least try it no matter what color he is. Green is still the goal, here.

So I've embarked on a make-a-puppet-for-myself adventure. I am not going to post this one to Etsy and I'm not going to use it for any shows (that I know of). I'm taking my time, I'm starting over with things when they don't work right, and I'm allowing myself to put him down without being finished with him. Leaving him alone when he's not finished is actually the hardest part of this project. A) I want to see him done! B) there's a lingering fear that if I put him down, I might never find the time/motivation to pick him up again. So far, I've gone back to him. And, I'm really excited about the whole thing.

I give another workshop to another library for teens & tweens tomorrow..and then again on Thursday & the following Saturday & that ends my library run of workshops. By the way, if you live anywhere near Phoenix, just let me know if you want to know about the workshops in more detail...the Library is paying me to teach, so it's free to anyone ages 12-18.

There. I've updated. Are you happy?

Happy Merridays!

"Mom! Wake up! The snow if falling from the ground!" This is what I was told at 7:30 this morning by my 4-year-old. Not "Mom, It's Christmas!" no "Mom, Santa brought me stuff!" not even "Hey, Look what I unwrapped for you!" My son knows what's important. His first white Christmas. It's also my first as well. My 30th Christmas & My son's 5th. The weeks leading up to Christmas he said "It always snows on Christmas in Colorado." We didn't want him to be disappointed, so we told him that, no, it doesn't always, in fact...it rarely does. So this morning, he saw it snowing from the ground & had to come tell me. It was much more important than the day that gifts are dumped upon his sweet head. We went downstairs to see the deck looking about an inch or two deep in snow and by now its about 9" deep 14 hours later. It's beautiful. I miss snow a lot. ( Toronto??)

So this week we're with just over half of the cousins. Imagine 10 children under the age of 7 running (and crawling) around the house. Of course Auntie Stacey is friggin rad because she knows all of these neat-o crafts and projects to do. So in one day we made sock puppets, paper-plate puppets, felt finger puppets & stick puppets (I feel wrong calling them rod puppets when they're made with Popsicle sticks). Yep, she's rad. I wish to meet her someday.

I realize this post has very little to do with puppetry or my journey to become a better puppeteer. Taking this break before I need to return home is, I'm sure, part of the journey. Not that the break should exactly be taken. I'll return home late on Sunday & I need 4 show puppets done by Thursday. Like I said in the previous post...baby-steps!

I remember the day when I had someone to help me build puppets. That day was nice. Someday I'll find another helper and I'll look back at this post and giggle and probably say "yeah, I'm still like that, aren't I?"

I feel like I need to end this post with some sort of "may your ___ be ___" statement. I'd sit here and think of a good one without writing in all of the stream-of-consciousness thought's involved in finding something witty to say, but then I'd probably just stare at the fish in the tank next to me in my Father-In-Law's office while they eat their Christmas flakes. And you be way less entertained because then you'd be done reading & you'd have to go back to doing what you were trying to avoid when you began reading this in the first place, so really, I'm doing both of us a favor. So let's stall just a bit more, shall we? Did you like what you got for Christmas? Did your ___ like what you got for them? What did you guys have for lunch? OK This seems one-sided & I tire of your silence.

May the last 6 days of 2007 be better than the best things that happened between January 1st and December 25th (Of 2007). Be well, and I apologize for being ridiculous.

I'm apparently bad at blogging

I keep meaning to write something of great importance, but I put it off, then I forget about it. It was so important, right?

I've been taking these last couple of weeks to actually be productive. That includes making puppets, listing puppets on etsy, taking pictures of puppets, updating bad pictures of puppets & giving puppet workshops.


Speaking of workshops, the workshop on November 10th was amazing! Thank you to everyone who not only showed up, but showed up with enthusiasm and an open mind to discovering their puppet. Yes, it sounds like a hippie way to build, but sometimes you just have to let go and let puppet...or something like that.

A bit of an amusing story...So about an hour and a half before the workshop, as my husband and I were on our way home from grabbing some last-minute supplies, I start to feel a bit under the weather...the car ride wasn't helping. I just barely made it to the toilet & had some diarrhea of the face. I climbed into bed with the usual post-barfing shakes & called the venue. Basically we decided that if I could do it, I'd do it, but if I couldn't, the people who signed up are all very understanding & some might not mind a postponement. I didn't want to leave anyone hanging, so I decided I'd go as far as I could. If that was 1/2 way through the workshop, then so be it. Thankfully the more I got to thinking about puppets, the less I got to thinking about vomit. The ginger ale helped, too.

There seems to be a trend in my puppet workshops & vomit coming out of my body. 3 hours before I was to leave for New York to give a workshop at the Etsy labs in June, I got the stomach bug that had been going around our home. I decided to still go & had a great time. I think I need to give at least one more workshop for adults to see if this theory holds up.

I haven't exactly been at home for the last few days. We're having some unexpected electrical work done to our house. I.E. The entire house is getting re-wired & we're getting a new panel and circuit breaker. Sadly, that means I can't work on my Once Upon A Puppet project. My home has no electricity. Last night we had partial electric in the kitchen and the bathroom & kiddo's bedroom, but try to set up a sewing machine on the toilet and you'll just annoy those who need to go. They said it's going to be "a few more days."

The good news is that I've finished the body of my puppet. It looks great! I'm thrilled with the hands, and the mouth-plate. Although, in the future I'll probably add another digit. I'm a fan of 5 fingers. The other good news is that all this time at the Great Arizona Puppet Theater, with nothing else to do (I did all the work last week), I get to sit and make finger puppets. So when I can upload pictures to my own computer, expect a lot of pictures!

It begins...

After finishing up a large custom order, I've decided to reward myself with starting on the project puppet project. It starts with printing off the pattern (easy enough) and cutting it all out. I got the head cut out and decided to blog about it. Not sure why. Vanity, I suppose.

So far, so good. The directions seem easy enough to follow. So here I go...backwards into the realm of following instructions!

I make puppets.

It's true. I make them. Now, I make blog posts, too.

This is one of the first finger puppets I made. Super Chicken.

It started when I was asked to put my hand puppets into The Trunk Space, a local art gallery here in Phoenix. I had mono and couldn't get up to the sewing machine to make any more hand puppets, so I grabbed my piles of fleece and started making finger puppets. Hamburgers, penguins, whales, mushrooms, lions, cats, dogs, giraffes, monsters, ladybugs, etc. all made it over there. I think I gave them about 35 of them.

I discovered making finger puppets was addictive. Instant gratification. Unlike a hand puppet which takes a lot of time before you get to the fun part of giving it a face, hands, tongues and the what-have-you, with a finger puppet you can add all of those things in about an hour! My living room was covered in thread and fleece. My bedroom was covered in thread and fleece. I think I actually broke our vacuum cleaner because of all the thread that wound around the brushes (really, it was on it's way out anyway...I just finished it off).

A friend of mine was urging me to join a website called Etsy. I figured I had my hands full enough with trying to keep the Trunk Space supplied, so I didn't do it for several months. She finally came over to my house and set up my shop for me. She took me outside to take pictures of my puppets (that picture there is one we took that day) and then we came inside to list them. That was about a year and a half ago. If Etsy has done one thing for me (other than give me some money to fund my puppetry habit), it has been to force me to better my artwork.

By no means do I know a lot about puppetry or puppet building. I have been fortunate enough to work with and for the Great Arizona Puppet Theater, who has one of the most kind directors you'll ever meet. They have done nothing but encourage me and guide me in my less than mediocre puppet building over the last 5-and-a-half years. Because of them, I'm doing what I dreamed of doing as a child. I only regret not having done it sooner.