goal: learn and share puppet-making

I'm gonna warn you...if you don't like puppets, you won't like this post. If things that look somewhat clown-like creep you out, scroll down carefully.

This is a puppet that was given to our family by a missionary family. It was passed along through someone else, so unfortunately, I didn't get to find out any details. But I'll tell you what...I love it. It's not the sweet looking kind of puppets that you think of as being for kids and it came along at a time when I was really getting excited about puppets.

Actually, I have puppetry in my blood, or at least I would if I weren't adopted. My dad is an amazing puppet-maker, and I've watched many of them be constructed over the years. Also, at various points in my life, I've spent hours and hours behind a puppet stage (not performing, but observing), and interacting with puppets on stage (although this goes back a looooong time). My love of muppets is difficult to separate from this...it is all intertwined.

This could be a long story, but I'll shorten it and say, a bunch of ideas converged, and so this goal is to learn puppet-making methods and share them on my blog each month. As in, each story that I feature will have a puppet project.

My plan is to try different types of puppets, and even create some accessories for them. Puppets are a very fun way to tell stories, and since that's the theme for this year, it all fits. And hopefully we won't scare off the non-puppet people. Although, with these photos in this post, we've probably lost them already...