1 | Page How to Design Hand Puppets by Scriptone aka CardboardFurniture
Oct 08, 2014
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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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