A few weeks ago I was enlisted by a friend to assist with a puppet workshop for elementary and middleschool students. I knew I wanted to do brown paper bag puppets as one option; they are easy and demonstrate that anything can become a puppet and a puppet can be made from anything.
But I wanted to have a second option for the older kids who may have already had experience with the brown paper bag puppets. I still wanted it to be easy and I still wanted it to showcase that puppets can be anything so I came up with this little guy:
Isn't he cute? And he was super easy to make! Take a look at my how-to in the techniques section. It's a great idea for moms and babysitters on rainy days, and also for teachers. Speaking of teachers, I am thinking of starting an education page for my blog which will demonstrate ways to use certain how-tos in lesson plans. What do you think?
Looking for more puppets? Check out my how-to for
SOCK PUPPETS!
Here is my first of many posts of the puppets I will be working on this semester!
The first puppets we created where sock puppets, which are a basic tube with no arms or legs. It only requires 1 puppeteer to manipulate and the only thing being manipulated is the head and the mouth!
For my puppet I was inspired by (of course) Jim Henson and his film The Labyrinth! I wanted to create a Labyrinth character which would translate most successfully into a tube puppet and I decided to re-create the little caterpillar that Jennifer Connelly meets just outside of the labyrinth walls:
All I used was felt, yarn and buttons for the eyes. I used the same yarn from the hair to create little pom-poms for the feet. Expect a how-to later on the pop-pom making technique!
My friend Sarah made this adorable penguin using felt and black buttons for eyes as well. She also added little flippers by stuffing some felt with cardboard and stitching it on!
Interested in making one of these crazy critters yourself? check out my
how-to for sock puppets to make your own!
My classes at Emerson have recently started up, and as some of you know, I am a theatre education major, meaning a majority of my classes are hands on, and creatively stimulating. Currently I am taking a class on puppetry! It is a crafter's wet dream! Twice a week I sit in a classroom full of sewing machines, felt, pom-poms, yarn, glue - anything you can imagine - and craft little creatures! I show a lot of my flair for creating fashion on this blog, but this class gives me the opportunity to show you some of the other things I have a passion for creating! So for the next few months I will be posting -interspersed with other posts as well (I hope! Fingers crossed that I commit!)- the puppets I create and a little how-to on how I created them or what inspired me to create them!
In honor of this endeavor I wanted to take a moment to pay homage to my favorite puppeteer, Jim Henson. I have be creatively stimulated (not in a creepy way) ever since I saw my first episode of Sesame Street. You'll see, in my next post, just how creatively stimuating and inspiring he has been! I also want to start thinking about how I can incorporate Jim Henson into Fashion! Keep an eye out for any DIY's that may come from that!
"When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people
who made a difference in this world.
My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there."
- Jim Henson
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