This kid-friendly project has already been presented by Danielle's Place over
here, but I thought I'd add my own pointers, and some step-by-step photos, because everybody loves a good photo tute. So, if you've got tons of socks/yarn remnants/felt remnants lying around, or if you need a mess of puppets in a hurry for some reason, here's what you do:
Step 1: Get your materials together. You will need: socks, some lightweight cardboard, yarn, felt, and any other crafting remnants you might have lying around--googly eyes are good if you've got them, but not necessary. You will also need your trusty glue gun.
Step 2: Do a little cutting. Place your sock heel side up, and smooth it down flat. You should have a crease straight through the middle and a flattened heel flap on top. Then, cut a semi-circle around where your hand will go. Make a longer head as shown here for a flat-fingered "duck" hand, or make a shorter head, cutting closer to the heel end for a hand with curled fingers.
Cut out a cardboard mouthpiece to fit your mouth opening. Next, you'll want to trim a 1/2 inch or so from the lower half of the sock's mouth (see below); this will correct the natural 'under-bite' that otherwise occurs in your puppet. I only realized this after I'd made the first few puppets, however, so you'll notice that all of my pictures have evenly-matched mouthparts.
Step 3: Glue in place. Lay the cardboard on top of the open mouth, then glue the sock fabric edge down all around. Tip: it helps if you glue opposite ends down first (i.e., 12:00 and 6:00, then 3:00 and 9:00, then seal the rest of the edges).
This is what you should have when you're done:
Notice that I overestimated the space needed to accommodate my hand in the sock on the right, so I fixed this by just flattening the extra material in the heel and glueing it down (NOTE: if you're using HOT glue, take your hand out first!). In step 5 we'll cover up that ugly flap with a pile of hair.
Step 4: Cover the inside of the mouth. Just trim a piece of felt to fit, and glue it on.
Step 5: Add the finishing touches. You can use googly eyes, pieces of felt, yarn remnants, fabric remnants, buttons, whatever. Have fun; go to town.
Jessca, who said:
Congratulations, Jessca! Please reply to the email I sent you and we'll get your prize shipped off straight away.
I struggle to make sense of it, but I love love LOVE the creative embroidery on this piece I found at the thrift store several years ago. I recently unearthed it again while moving things from the closet under the stairs (a space that I discovered was completely inadequate for my needs) to my new crafting space / guest room (bedroom #4, which, when last seen on this blog, was crammed with pillows and junk but which now has been restored to a livable space, except for the closet). Anyway, when I saw these bunnies again I had to pause for a bit to reexamine the design, especially after seeing this great tute on thread sketching on Clutterpunk. I mean, WOW.
Sorry about the wavy-ness of the fabric; I don't have a working scanner so these photos will have to do. Here is the sum of the parts, see if you can make any more sense out of it than I can. It looks like 2 bunnies have crashed back to Earth in a lunar module and, having totally run out of astronaut-carrots not to mention astronaut-lettuce, are now fishing for food in the ocean.
Ok, I STILL don't get the joke, but it's beautiful, and maybe that's the only thing that matters. Now I just have to figure out what to do with this... I think I would like to see it as a pillow, except that I would hate for it to get dirty.
The back yard is also coming along, but slowly. We're hoping to get the flagstone path put in this weekend if possible--it should be a fairly "easy" job in terms of getting the stones arranged--we plan to plant creeping thyme in between so we won't have to worry about closing the gaps so much, but we are nervous about doing the job right and for sure it will take a lot of hard work.
1. Alessi Bavero Milk Jug: this one would make a lovely vase, reminds me of something you'd find on Holly's blog.
I spied this recipe over on Nicole's blog and just had to try it. Had to; she left me no choice. They are oaty and almondy and oh-so-hearty... I think I'll try adding more brown sugar next time (increasing to 1/4 cup instead of just 1/8), and maybe use a smaller (2" instead of 3") biscuit cutter since I always end up breaking these in half before eating.
