u/lesmax

I've made lots of various props and things before (like the dolphin puppet Pam uses in 'Archer'), but I hadn't made people puppets. It was a fun exercise in turning flat felt into rounded shapes.

Green shirt puppet was first and far more of a trial-and-error situation, I used what I learned from that process when making the purple hair puppet. Somewhat hampered by lack of felt, too, but determined to make it work with what I had.

Aside from felt, the glasses are zip ties and the clothes are shirts my stepdaughter grew out of. Lots of hot glue was involved. Inner structural stuffing is foam padding; I repurposed a mattress topper that was no longer needed. I cut parts in shapes to fill out the heads and layered as needed.

The process gave me a better frame of reference for making bodies in the future. The mouths open and close by putting your hand/fingers into openings in the padding inside the heads.

The idea came up somewhat last minute near the end of their vacation, so I spent about ten hours over two days hand-sewing these.

I don't have patterns, I adjusted as I went along by folding and pinning sheets of felt. Hand stitching helped keep rounded areas a bit smoother and allowed for better control, though it took far longer. My hands are a bit arthritic, so I did the best I could on that!

Puppets are set up to be used with the left hand. The puppets' left hands are attached to their shirts. The right hands are controlled with a stick. In the interest of time, the arms and hands are just flat lengths of felt.

Overall, great fun, I intend to make more puppets, and the neighbors found it hysterical, particularly the 'skits' we put together in videos we sent them and by letting their doorbell camera capture it!

My great uncle after liberation from a Nazi work camp in Poland (1945)

Husband and I cat-sit for my neighbors, so I made puppets of them to use for the photo/video updates we send them.