Portable Puppet Theater: Cut Strips for Frame

Series Summary

One of the easiest ways to introduce your child to the world of artistic exploration is to allow them the freedom to initiate and participate in their very own arts and crafts projects. One very simple but truly fun project for children and adults is the creation of a portable puppet theater using a variety of art supplies and, naturally, creative vision! Parents who are drawn to such timeless and innovative hobbies as scrap-booking and homemade frame-making will delight in the project featured in this series. Your kids will love creating their own designs and watching their mind's eye create something for friends and family, and you will open your creative spirit wide as you help your child discover their artistic potential. This free crafts video series will take you from choosing supplies to adding finishing touches to your portable puppet theater. Learn how to gather supplies, cut, measure, construct and decorate your creation. Get started watching these videos and you’ll have a fun portable puppet theater before you know it.

Video Transcript

"The first thing we're going to do is take our corrugated paper and cut it into strips and these are going to be attached together to make our picture frame border that's going to be placed on the base of the stage. So we go ahead and cut along the lines of the corrugated paper and it's also important to cut along the lines so that we can put the skewer sticks inside, they'll go right inside the holes. So we want to cut it so that the corrugated paper, the lines are running the length of the strips. And we try to make them the same size so once you have one strip made, you can go ahead and lay it on top of the paper and go ahead and cut it along the same, make it the same width. Each strip should be about eighteen inches long. And once we have four strips made, we'll be able to fasten them at the corners and this will make our border for the stage. Now the corrugated paper, the color that I'm using is white, so that enables me to decorate it. You can cover it with a piece of cloth, felt, or any type of material, or you can actually use markers and paint and decorate it that way, depending what you want to do with your theater. If you want to keep it one theme for one type of show, then you can put specific decorations for the same theme of the show. But if you just want to keep it as a stage for multiple types of puppet shows, then you might just want to color it with solid colors and just to make it look nice. So that's an option that you have after you've cut the strips, you have the option to decorate it as well. So once we have our four strips, we'll be ready to attach them together to make the border that's going to sit on the base of the stage."