Marionette Puppet Making in Paradise

It is a beautiful morning on the West Coast of Fla.

The sun is just coming up with a bright orange light 

that is peeking through the palm trees.

 The birds are singing their morning songs.

A light breeze is coming in out of the south.

Today is the prefect day to start making our 

papier marché puppets.

Jane and I have been talking about making 

puppets for about a month now.

It all started when she posted a wonderful

picture of papier marché puppets on facebook.

I saw them and said, " Jane we should

make these for our Grandchildren!"

Jane agreed and so here we are.

Jane and I have never made papier marché puppets

but we are very excited to give it a try, or as Jane says,

" Give it a go."

Join us in our first adventure of papier marché puppet making.

To start our puppet making we need a paste.

We are using one cup of flour,

 2 table spoons of salt (for mold control)

a sprinkle of cinnamon ( for smell )

1 to 1 and1/4 cups of water added a 1/4 cup at a time 

and then we mix everything together.

Our mixture is a slightly runny paste. 

You can use just about anything to make puppets.

We are using newspapers torn into

1 to 2 inch strips. For our puppet heads

we are experimenting with a Styrofoam

egg cut in half and balloons.

A paper towel hub or toilet paper hub works well

for a neck.

Here you see Jane and some of our friends dipping their

strips of newspaper into the paste. Jane is running her

fingers down the strip to remove the excess paste.

She then places each strip onto her form one piece at a time.

We can only put on four layers at a time. Our piece must then

dry fully before we add more strips.

While our puppet heads are drying.

Jane and I start forming our feet and legs.

These are going to be marinate puppets so our puppets will

need weighted feet.

We are using olive shells wired together with

aluminum wire.

Now that our feet and legs are wired we will start

placing our strips of paper around them.

Setting our feet aside to dry Jane and I start working 

on our puppets hands.

I chose to use aluminum foil as my mold.

 I shaped it into a hand and a wrist, 

then I started layering on my newspaper stripes.

Jane chose a slightly different approach.

She made a hand frame out of aluminum wire.

Then she placed her strips onto her form.

Our puppet heads, feet and hands are drying.

Soon we will start adding another layer.

Join us in a few days for the next step.

Until then have fun and always try new things!