Tools & Supplies: How to Make a Puppet

Series Summary

Puppets are inanimate objects used to tell a story in a play or presentation. Usually puppets are characters, but not always. Puppets have been in use for thousands of years, dating back to ancient Greek civilization. They are used in shows, theaters, movies, plays and even Saturday morning cartoon shows. Some puppets are moved by strings or sticks, these are called marionettes. Others are worn like gloves and are moved by the hand. Still others involve electronic controls and mechanisms, these are called supermarionation puppets. Puppets come in all shapes and sizes, colors, types, and denominations.

Making your own puppets is a fun activity for people of all ages. There are different supplies needed for different kinds of puppets. This series of videos demonstrates how to make a moving mouth puppet. Our expert explains how to create different variables of a puppet’s face beginning with the drawing of the pattern. You will learn how to make a puppet’s mouth board and how to make it move. Watch as our expert creates a tongue and finishes the mouth of the puppet. Get tips for making the eyes and nose of a puppet. Learn what works best for the stuffing of the puppet’s arms, legs and head. Bring your puppet to life by adding wires to the arms and making it move. Put on a play with your new puppets and entertain your friends and family!

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Paul Lewis from Puppetsnstuff.com. You can find us on the worldwide web at www.puppetsnstuff.com on behalf of Expert Village.com. I would like to welcome you. Today I am going to teach you how to build a moving mouth puppet which is a basic moving mouth puppet that you can use in your next puppet production. First we are going to start out with some supplies that we are going to need so you might want to jot this down as I show them to you one by one. We are going to need a bunch of hot glue sticks, hair dryer, and hot glue gun and box cutters. This over here is a piece of cardboard cut from a juice box and the cardboard is going to be cut in a rectangle. It is going to be about 4 ½ x 6 inches. We are also going to need some cataphyll fleece. A half-yard cataphyll fleece will do the trick. Any color that you want your puppet to be. The neat thing about cataphyll fleece is that it comes in a whole variety of colors and by the way, most of the materials you can buy at your local fabric store or craft store. Over here we have a sheet of rubber. Normally these come in rectangle but I have been cutting pieces off building a bunch of puppets. So, it is not a rectangle right now but they do come in rectangular shapes red rubber. Over here, is a piece of 1 inch foam rubber and we have cut it into kind of a square about 7 ½ x 7 inches. We are going to need a sheet of felt, black felt preferably. We are going to need right over here is kind of a little brush with foam rubber at the end. We are going to be working with contact cement later on so this will be able to be your tool for dabbing on the contact cement. Of course, we are going to need our contact cement. We are going to need some scissors. We are going to need a pom-pom. Over here we have a bunch of little tabs of felt and they are adhesive pieces so you can peel them off the paper and stick them on your character. I will show you what they are for later on. But again you can buy them at your local craft store and fabric store. Magic marker and craft fur and little marabou bows. Of course, we are going to need a sewing machine. Over here, we have a little glass of water and it is not to drink. We are going to be using it when we work with our hot glue and I will show you a little trick there that will save you a lot of time and could also keep you from getting burnt. If I had a penny for every time I got burnt with a hot glue gun for not using that water, I would be a millionaire by now. So, we are definitely going to keep that water right over there. I think that is about it for our supplies so when we come back we are going to start building our puppet. "