Puppets are a great toy for inspiring the imagination through make-belief, storytelling and role-playing. They can be a terrific avenue for expression, laughter and fun! Puppets are also a wonderful learning tool— they can be used to teach children any subject in a creative way! What better than a silly, playful friend to engage young ones? I’ve had a lot of success using my puppets in classrooms and after school programs to teach math and literacy and for adding a special allure to story-time! I’m happy to share the joy of puppets with a few now available for sale and more varieties coming to life in the Monster Workshop!
I currently offer fleece puppets like the ones shown directly below and I also make more complex ones like Super Max, the grey fury guy, in the next picture. Send me a message if you’re interested in a customized puppet.
As promised, here is the pattern and instructions for last week’s fun craft, the Gotcha Monster!
Supplies:
Felt sheets
Pipe-Cleaners
Craft Stuffing/Cotton/Fabric Scraps
Scissors
Marker
Glue (hot glue gun & glue or white craft glue)*
Optional Supplies for Personalizing Your Monster:
Craft Foam Sheets
Googly Eyes (instead of cutting out your own felt eyes)
Craft Fur
Beads
Ribbons
Feathers
Whatever you want to decorate your Gotcha!
*Note: I used hot glue, which dries quickly as you press your pieces together but hot glue guns should only be used by an adult using caution as they can cause burns! If using white glue, be patient as it dries.
Step 1: Print provided pattern or design your own monster shapes on paper. You can get as creative as you like with shapes and details! What will your Gotcha look like!?
Step 2: Cut out paper pattern pieces and trace them in specified amounts onto felt sheets using a marker. Choose your own colours! You can use craft foam for the horns if you have it, but felt is fine!
Step 2: Cut Out & Trace Your Pattern
Step 3: Cut out all the shapes now drawn on the felt and/or craft foam.
Step 3: Cut Out Your Pieces
Step4: Use a pipe cleaner to form each of the monster’s arms and legs: fold in half, fold ends over to create a long “M” shape, twist pipe cleaner at fingers/toes and down the arm/leg to create a sturdy limb.
Step 4: Bend Pipe-Cleaners Into Arms & Legs
Step 5: Glue the Belly, Eyes, Pupils, Mouth, then Tongue (glue along the flat, cut edge of the felt to make the tongue stick out!) to the outside of the Front Body.
Steps 5 & 6: Glueing On the Pieces
Step 6: Glue the Horns, Fur or other optional accessories if any (get creative!), Arms and Legs to the inside of the Back Body— all just a few centimetres in from the edge so that they stick out!
Step 7: Attach the Back and Front Body together by applying glue to the edge of the inside of either Body, a section at a time, leaving a small hole to push the stuffing into. (*If using white glue, let the glue dry at this stage before attempting to stuff the monster.) After filling the body with stuffing/cotton balls/fabric scraps, glue the remaining hole shut and ta-daa! You’ve got yourself a Gotcha!
Step 7: Attach the Front & Back
Step 8: Give your Gotcha a name and have fun! See what your Gotcha can hang onto or what games it might come up with!
Step 8: A Gotcha is Born- Have Fun!
Happy crafting everyone…I’d love to see a picture of your Gotcha in the comments!
I’ve got a serious case of the crafties lately— for me crafting is an unleashing of creative energy as well as a peaceful and therapeutic activity. So my logic deduces that crafting is overall good for the heart! Since I’ve been wanting to create some monster crafts for all of you young-at-heart monster huggers out there, it proved to be the perfect day for creating this crafty little cutie. He’s fun and easy to make and can hang out with you wherever you go to serve as a reminder that joy, love, and creativity can be found in any moment. Stay tuned for the upcoming free monster craft pattern and instructions to make your very own Gotcha! In the meantime, don’t forget to create in whatever fun, calming, imaginative, stress-relieving ways call to you… Especially if you’ve found yourself stuck in a mindset of needing to be achieving, succeeding, or otherwise accomplishing materially purposeful activities lately 😉 Set your heart free…let the crafties getcha 😉
You know those days when your energy is so low that you just want to find a burrow to crawl into? Sometimes it’s better to just give in and allow yourself the break you need. ‘Nuf said…
I’ve had some interest in colouring pages this past week, and as such, I decided to create a free printable one for you and/or the little ones in your life! After an unexpected friend landed in my nature photoshoot on Friday— resulting in a photo that received more attention than the rest of the shoot’s photos— I knew I had my inspiration. So in the name of summer coming up and new friends to be found all around, I hope you enjoy this free “Colour-Me” page:
DIRECTIONS: Click on the image > Click the “View Full Size Image” button at the bottom right> Select File > Print > Choose landscape > Print. Let me know if you have any issues as it’s my first time sharing a printable on my blog 🙂
If you want to see more of my available work, including a downloadable 10-page colouring book entitled “What’s in a Seed?”, visit my online SHOP here!
Colour-Me Printable Page
(P.S. Below is the popular photo from my photoshoot for your now-peaked interest!)
So I had a terrible week of sleep. In fact, I was so frustrated and miserable because of it, it was probably a good thing that my contact with people is severely limited right now. I apologize (and am grateful) to those who were subjected to the Sleepless Beast I became. It was glaringly obvious that some serious self-care was crucial if I was going to avoid literally biting heads off…
When you think about the term “self-care” it sounds super simple, doesn’t it? Oh, just take care of myself? Got it. Good. Great. For many humanoids however, self-care is a bit more of a feat than an easy or natural tendency. For those of you who have it down, awesome work— please keep it up and share your wisdom! For the rest of us, we’ll keep fumbling along, learning as we go, trying and sometimes succeeding sometimes failing, and that’s also awesome work, because we’re doing the best we can.
We’re in an interesting time right now where self-care may be needing an extra bright spotlight upon it. For some, added financial stress, for others isolation, perhaps deep loss and grief, health challenges, a hiatus of usual resources, a complete change of routine (including bedtime)… Whatever the struggles might be right now, self-care is likely ONE tool in the kit that is worth dusting off, or even taking the time to shine with an old rag.
Alas, many of our usual ways of practising self-care may have been bumped, shuffled, or knocked completely off the shelf in the midst of the planet’s turmoil. What is one to do? Self-care was hard enough already, and now we have to (almost if not) start from scratch in developing routines, practices, and whatever else to soothe ourselves? Here are my humble thoughts as I fumble through this journey myself. Also to mention, all of this can be applied to any situation or circumstance that alters life’s routines— not just during a pandemic.
Take inventory of what worked before. What were the things you relied on for stress-reduction, mindfulness, health, peace, joy, fun, connection etc. If you can’t remember, try tracing back through your previous routines, maybe even consulting friends and family, or scanning back through social media pages or old agendas to jog your memory. What are you missing the most? What were the biggest pieces for you? I suggest you brainstorm it on paper…
Take a new inventory of what you need now. A lot has changed, so your needs may very well have changed too. Maybe you used to consider “quiet-time” a necessity for self-care because your calendar was so full of social events you had to schedule in your well-needed you-time. Now, maybe the opposite is true, and you’re needing to more actively find ways to connect with others because the you-time is ahhhh-plenty. What is your heart, mind, body, and soul needing right now? Try keeping a journal throughout a day or two to note what you are lacking, needing, feeling, frustrated with, enjoying, etc. What thoughts are you noticing? What sensations are happening in your body? What are your tendencies and how do they make you feel? These noticings might give you clues to your deeper longings. A mindfulness or meditation practice may also be very helpful in revealing what your needs truly are. In any case, really notice and feel in. Dig deep!
Get creative. Now we’re getting to the (hopefully) really fun stuff. Based on what you discovered in the first two steps, you can combine old and new self-care options to do the best you can to fulfill your current needs. If some of your beloved go-tos are not available right now, what substitutes can be made? If you relied on going to the gym to stay healthy and manage stress, perhaps you can instead try some outdoor activities or a home workout routine (there are plenty online or using apps!). The point is, find new ways of taking care of you. And I’m not just talking about easy or common sense ways— getting really creative might be needed, or at least benefited from. Look at your unique skills and strengths, your outside-the-box thinking, your heart’s deepest passions. I can’t tell you what these things are for you, but try asking yourself questions like: “What really makes me tick? What have I always wanted to do or try? Why haven’t I made time to do x, y, or z from that dust-gathering to-do list? Why did I ever stop doing (fill in the blank)? How can I make even one step of a goal or dream come true despite any current limitations? What can I do to bring some peace into my life right now? How can I solve that problem with what I already have? What do I know deep down that I’m needing?” The list goes on…but get curious and start looking under rocks, so to speak. Unless you’re on the beach, then looking under rocks might actually provide you with some new insight or surprising discoveries 😉
Let’s get back to the Beast. After the sleepless nights had accumulated to a gruesome mass, I decided I needed to put my creative self-love problem-solving cap on. I was missing the water therapy of my usual pool visits, my mind was cluttered from being alone with them too much, my bedtimes were all over the place with a lack of any sort of schedule, and the changing seasons had brought sunshine onto my eyelids earlier than I could cope with in the mornings…I set about on a rampage to destroy (or rather gently resolve in a zen way) these troubling problems.
I planned an at-home spa retreat. I reorganized and decluttered my apartment. I started a routine of listening to zen meditation talks over morning tea. I set an alarm to remind me of bedtime. And I dug out my fabric scraps and quilted together enough pieces to make a “blackout curtain” large and thick enough to block the morning sun. The curtain proved to require a lot of creativity and effort, but was definitely worth it. Plus it also got me excited about a number of other sewing projects I have waiting for the needle and thread (including a puppet from last week’s blog, so stay tuned), which fulfills another need of mine— second only to sleep— the need for creating!
Black-Out Curtain Sewing Project
Now everything might not be perfect, but remember, every bit helps. I’m happy to say the Beast has been subdued and my sleep and ensuing moods have definitely improved. I encourage you to also look at what needs of yours are going unmet, and to creatively put them to bed as well. Please feel free to comment below to share how you’re solving your self-care feats during this time!
I often find myself missing my childhood play time— the magic of disappearing into fictitious stories and make-believe worlds; the joy of embodying a character with uninhibited freedom of expression; the escape from the world’s problems into mystery, laughter, romance… the imagination is the limit. That is to say it is unlimited of course.
Play is an incredibly powerful activity and, not just unfortunately— but tragically — is often left in the wake of adulthood. Play allows us to discover more about the world and about ourselves while expressing in ways otherwise inhibited. It is crucial, at any age, in my opinion (and in the opinion of many experts who study play).
Play can take many forms, from art and creative projects, to songwriting, to improv, to sports, to frolicking at the beach or amongst the trees, to laughing and goofing around with friends to — (insert your favourite fun activities here!). If it is coming from a pure, authentic, free place, and eliciting joy, I think it is safe to call it “play” though others may have a different definition.
As many of you know, one of my favourite sources of play is creating monsters— both on paper and off, the “off” part including HAND PUPPETS! Puppets are such fun and create an often immediate bridge of connection with children in different activities and environments as well as reacquainting us “older kids” with our childhood selves. What better than having a ridiculous character attached to your arm to elicit sporadic voices, movements, storytelling, and whatever else may come. I love puppets, and I’ve recently been called to create more of them.
You can make your own simple puppets by using an (old?) sock and some googly-eyes and get creative with other crafting supplies like felt, pipe-cleaners, fabric scraps, buttons, sequins, paper, popsicle sticks… oh how the memories of my childhood are dancing fresh on my mind right now! Perhaps I’ll post some tutorials on puppet-making here in the coming days… anyone interested?
Below are 3 different Monster Puppet designs I’ve created, please help me out by voting for the one you’d most like to see come to life! Option 1, 2 or 3!?
When you sit still with Nature, She starts to talk to you,
She comes alive in ways you never knew,
She asks you to see things like you never have before,
It’s magical what happens when you step outside your door…
“Dandylions”
For those of us lucky enough to have wild access to Mother Nature, remember to visit and cherish Her. Sit with Her. For anyone who doesn’t, don’t fret. You can find Her in your mind, in the sky outside your window, in the plant in the corner, in that beautifully shot documentary, in a pet or song bird, in the depths of your soul… She’s all around, holding us with grace and inspiration. We are Her.
Play. Create. Discover... 
