Portable Puppet Theater: Cover the Top of Stage

Video Transcript

"Now we're ready to cover the top of the base of our stage. It's pretty straight forward. You'll probably need to cut a few different pieces because if you're using the same size pieces of felt, it will not be the same width as the piece we put around the base. So you'll probably have to use a few different pieces and put it on. Now even though it's a very straight forward, I must tell you one tip. Remember, we are going to be sticking the picture frame border into this box, into the base, so if it's totally covered with felt, it's going to be very hard to stick it inside, into the top of the box. So what we want to do is, we want to cover the top of the box with the felt but in between the pieces that we use, the separate pieces, we want to keep a kind of strip which is not covered. It's going to be just a fraction of an inch and that's going to be wide enough that we can stick the wooden skewers that are attached to the bottom of the picture frame border into the base, into our box. So when you're putting the pieces together, just remember that you need to leave a little strip, just a fraction of an inch, that will let you put the picture frame border into the top of the box. So we're going to go ahead and do that now. The way we do it is, obviously we can't use the staples for this part of the box, so I'm going to be using glue. And I just coat the top of the box, even the piece of felt that's hanging over, going around the circumference, I just coat it all with glue, I put a nice layer all around and then I'm just going to take the pieces of felt and I'm going to lay it right on top of the glue and it should stay in place really well. Now you don't have to be concerned if the glue is on the felt and it's kind of showing around from the outside because the glue, if you're using a white glue, or a crafts glue which you should be using, then it's going to dry clear so it's not going to be a problem. So go and place a nice generous coat of glue around the top of the box and then take the pieces and just put them right onto, lay them right on top and press them a little bit. And remember, before you put the second piece, just leave a small fraction of an inch of space so that we'll be able to put the border in which will make up the back part of our stage. So we measure our second piece and also the space that you leave to put in the picture frame border should be in the space, in the part of the box that's going to fit nicely within the scheme of your theater. In other words, if you leave that strip too far in the back or too far in the front, it will change the whole look of the theater. So make sure that when you put the different pieces of the felt, that you plan ahead where you're going to put the space in between the pieces and where you want your picture frame border to be standing up. So now I've shown you how to cover the top of our stage, of the base of our stage and to also leave room that we'll be able to place the picture frame border inside."