HALLOWEEN FUN with PUPPETS!

Here is some of the HALLOWEEN fun we have been having this year!
All 9 Halloween puppet designs are now available at the Silhouette Online Store! Sorry I don't have a picture of all of them. These were my kids' favorites so that's why they get the spotlight!
Here is the link to the store to see them all:
http://www.silhouetteonlinestore.com/?page=view-shape&id=49156 
 



Took two pictures to show how the popsicle puppet changes when you move him up or down to make him talk!

I thought I should include a little HOW TO portion on how I made the popsicle puppet. Here goes...

The popsicle stick I used is about 3/4" wide, so tongue depressor size!

 STEP 1: After cutting and assembling the top and bottom pieces of the puppet (or you can just print and cut them like I did), glue the bottom piece of your puppet towards the bottom of your popsicle with a little spot for little fingers to hold it and making sure there is plenty of popsicle left on top for your top puppet piece to slide up and down. You then need to cut a strip of paper about as wide as your puppet, mine is about 1" x 5". This is going to be your tab or piece you will mount to the top portion of your puppet so it can slide along the popsicle. See pictures below.

STEP 2: I folded the strip of paper in half and marked the middle with a brown line (see below). I then used my popsicle and marked its width to each side of the middle line (green lines below). In the pictures I included you will see that I quickly shaded in the area between the two green lines, reminding me that that is where I will be putting my glue. I then made two more marks in blue, each mark about half the popsicle width out from the green lines (see below). In the next set of pictures you will notice that I also quickly shaded the area from the blue line out to the edge of the paper on each side, again, reminding me that this is where my glue goes.

 

STEP 3: The strip of paper should already have a fold at the halfway or brown line. If not, fold your paper in half and make a crease along the brown line. Then fold and crease your paper along the green lines. The three creases should allow you to fold your strip of paper so that the green shaded area is now a tent shape (see picture below). Add glue to the shaded area, you can see that I used the old trusty glue stick, and pinch the tent closed creating a little tab that will be perfect for little fingers to grab and manipulate the puppets movement. Also note that the space between the two blue lines should now be about the width of your popsicle! Pretty tricky, right!?! 

STEP 4: Before you just go gluing your nifty tab anywhere on the back of your top puppet piece, here are a few things to note: 

Your top piece will only be able to slide as low as your tab is placed because the bottom piece of your puppet will stop it when it runs into the tab (the picture below may show you this better than I can explain it). You also need to make sure that your puppet pieces overlap (top piece on top of bottom piece) enough that when you make your puppet talk your seeing the mouth of the bottom piece and not just popsicle stick and a gap because the only way to slide is up (photo #2). I figured out the placement of my tab by laying the top piece of my puppet on top of the bottom piece so that the mouth was completely closed, or as low as I would need it to slide (photo #1). I then held the top piece in place while I flipped it over and then glued my tab to the backside of the top piece just above the top edge of the bottom piece (photo #3).

PS-Remember you place the glue on the shaded areas that are running from the blue lines out towards the edges of the strip of paper. No glue in the middle area. That's where your popsicle fits and needs to slid freely- thus, no glue!  

photo 1

photo 2

photo 3

 Once you've pressed the tab in place, let the glue dry (I actually just glued mine with the popsicle in place, just like the picture directly above, so it was ready to go) and then enjoy your fun "talking" HALLOWEEN puppet!

PHEEWWW!!! That was a lot of work! Not really, but when you try to explain each step it seems like a lot more work than it actually is. You can do it, quick and easy!!! But if you want to make things even easier.... just make a paper sack puppet. Pretty self explanatory. And the kids love the puppets either way!!!!