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How to Design Hand Puppets

Oct 08, 2014

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How you can make professional looking puppets for your next performance! Find out how to make a child-safe sewing needle for sock PUPPETS HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7PSw4XExbI. If you want to make your own wigs for mini puppets check out HOW TO DYE COTTON to create realistic human-like faux hair video here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNOLSwlcjVc
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Page 1: How to Design Hand Puppets

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How to Design Hand Puppets by Scriptone aka CardboardFurniture

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If you enjoy construction, gluing and

sewing and take time and care with

details, you can finish several puppets

over a 2 weeks.

Renowned puppeteer Barbara Dewey

has easy to follow instructional video on

youtube if you need a INSTANT PUPPET.

Look for “How to make a puppet from

A stuffed animal / toy”

Check out ways you can use puppetry for

educational purposes:

Intro: How to Design Hand Puppets Make do with household items, to design

a unique puppet!

http://www.nostrings.org.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/user/n

ostringspuppets

The fabric I used for the puppets here is EVA. Its a strong, soft, lightweight foam,

similar to foam used in camping mats. (I got a 4 metre piece for $6.)

The more v-shaped slits you cut, you will come up

with an egg head shape.

Step 1 : Choose head shape I cut out small paper circles "thumbnail sculptures" then

experimented with designing head shapes.

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The chin shape will be half the size of the

top half of the head.

Step 2: Lining the Head & Chin Cover the top half of head with fleece. Line inside with

lightweight fabric and outside with fleece, or terry toweling, or

even an old quilt. Fleece is great because it doesn't fray. I used

invisible thread to sew the fleece to the EVA foam.

Image Notes

1 . V cut to fit hand more comfortably

Sew all the cuts with polyester

thread. You could use cement

glue, but I think I don’t like the

smell of the cement.

Make the chin in the same way

as head top.

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You can see the steps here clearly to make the chine and head shape. Each triangle cut was sewn together with polyester thread. Then covered with soft fabric and sewn to the EVA foam with invisible nylon thread on the outside and soft lining inside.

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All done

covering the

head and jaw!

Here are the pieces to line the mouth piece. I used striped fabric and orange fabric.

r O

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Step 4: Insert thumb pocket The red felt is to fit your thumb in for

moving the chin.

Invisible thread is your best friend

here.

Image Notes

1. Trace EVA smaller to insert between orange

fabric and striped lining

Image Notes

1. Thumb space - Sewn with invisible

thread to chin area.

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Step 5: Decide on your mouth hinge Do you want a tight mouth hinge or

a loose one?

A tight hinge is sewn at the corner of head

and chin corners.

The loose one is less tiring to control. Leave

2cm between top of head and chin for a loose

hinge.

Image Notes

1 . Loose hinge

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Image

Notes 1.

Tight

hinge

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Step 6: Add neck Fold over a piece of fleece that roughly fits

larger than neck space.

Fold in half. Begin sewing with invisible thread

from the back.

Sew to head top and chin until you have a "sleeve" for

your hand to fit through. Use a shorter section of

fleece then join a longer sleeve with another fabric to

save fleece.

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Step 7: Add accessories For the eyes I used cut spoons and to add a bit of shine to the pupils, cut black plastic bags.

You create different characters by rearranging the angle and placement and size of the accessories. The pupils are

usually placed a bit cross-eyed (near the nose), to give an appearance of looking directly at the audience at every

angle.

Eyelashes are black frilly wool. Eyelids for the magenta quilt puppet head are made of orange felt cut in a

crescent then glued to the back of ping pong ball.

The hair is a short bit of knitted wool. You can improvise with anything at hand.

On other puppets I used ping pong balls sliced in half. I then spilled a little foam / pva glue inside and

left to dry overnight. The nose is a bit of felt sewn over sponge ball.

1 . Sponge sewn nose with blue felt

2.Hair cut off old doll

3.White wool knitted in triangular and

rectangular pieces

1.This fabric is a quilt cover

2.Orange eyelashes made from frilly

multicolored wool

Image Notes

1 . This puppet appears

slightly cranky because

the brows are quite

closely knitted

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Image Notes

1. Glue purple / black felt first for throat shape. The glue

on pink heart for tongue shape

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