Monday, October 5, 2015

Puppet Making

In high school, I took a class called Children's Theater. This class focused mostly on drama for children, but there was a puppet component to it. Honestly, that was a big part of why I chose to take that class. Anyways, one of the first puppet assignments we had was to actually make a puppet. That was one thing I was not sure how it would turn out considering I have never really tried to make one before. And then, there was the slight issue that I don't really know how to sew that well. Therefore, making a puppet would be difficult to a point. 
The requirements for our puppet was that it either had a working mouth or arms that could move. Being that I actually do puppets, I was not going to make a puppet that only did one or the other. My puppet was going to have both a working mouth and arms that I could put arm rods on. So, of course, that made it even more difficult to make. 
My dad had made the foam head parts of a puppet before, so he helped me with that part. We then had to get the foam to make the body. The foam gets cut to the appropriate size, rounded, and then glued together. You don't want it to be too small of a diameter, but if you make a large body, it will make the puppet itself overall bigger. 
Once the foam part of the puppet is made, your need the fabric to go around the outside of the puppet to make its skin. We had to go to a fabric store and find a fabric that would work as a skin color. Sure, a puppet really could be any color, but for the puppet that I was making, I wanted it to be a more traditional looking puppet. Therefore, I was limited on what fabrics would work for me. I found one that worked and we bought it. This is one of the parts of puppet making where knowing how to sew would be helpful. Since I could not sew the fabric, I had to use glue. I don't know how many of you have tried to use glue (fabric glue or otherwise) with a bigger fabric project, but it is a pain. Let alone, I am not sure if I had all the fabric measured correctly. So, I had to just try and get it to be flat against the foam and to stay on there. It worked, but it would have probably looked better if it was sewed and measured correctly. I then had to put in the felt for the mouth and put on the eyes and the nose. I made the hands out of the fabric and glued it on. The sad thing about her hands is that I am not very good with measurements so her hands are crazy small.
The hair was interesting to get on without being able to sew as well. The hair is made of brown yarn. However, since I couldn't sew it, I used hot glue. Therefore, there are those lovely hot glue string pieces all over her hair. I didn't make it think enough, either. So, the glue spots are even more noticeable.  
After making her, I got to choose an outfit for her as well as name her. I will still majorly into Twilight at the time, so I made up this whole story where she was Renesmee and Jacob's daughter. They named her Rosella after Rose and Bella (the two that fought the most to keep Bella pregnant with Renesmee). Other assignments included performing a skit with a group as well as performing a song with a group. The song was fun because it was prerecorded and it was Disney music! 

 
Genesis 1: 26-27  
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1

God created the world and on the 6th day, He created man. Obviously, making a puppet is nothing compared to God creating man. However, in a much lesser way, it is still sort of "bringing life" to something. Sure, it isn't as cool as what happened with Pinocchio, but I still like that I made her. 
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To see the rest of the posts from this series please click here  

 

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