This would be a great project to do with friends for your own craft night, or to make with kids.

Behold! The Flying Purple People Eater and the Fluffy-head –>

This tutorial is less ‘step by step’ than my usual ones, since the object is not to create what I created, but to make your own monster up!

So, what do you need?

• Sweaters, preferably already shrunken/felted. You’ll need a sleeve that is big enough to be the body of your puppet.
• Scrap felt/sweaters to make your embellishments.
• Eyes – either safety toy eyes, buttons, or you can make out of the felt scraps if you like. That’s of course assuming your monster has eyes! (I was lucky enough to have a few toy eyes that the lovely Colleen from Some Art Fabric had given me, and they worked great!)
• Embroidery thread.

First, pick your sleeve. You can use a solid color (we both did purple here) or stripes, or whatever works for your monster. Cut off the sleeve, trimming the part near the shoulder so it is even all around (like a giant sock).

Next, plan your head. We did a couple of different things here, but here are a few options:
1) Square – just turn inside out, and sew the cuff together in a straight line.
2) Curved – sleeve inside out, trim a curved line, and stitch together.
3) Rounded – See the example below. Although my ‘spikes’ should have been shorter. It was pretty messy, but that was ok, since I was adding a horn.
4) Fluffy – See the example below – with sleeve right side out, gather a few inches from the top. Weave thread back and forth, and pull tight. Afterwards, you can cut the cuff to resemble hair! (Note, in the pictures, this was done after creating the mouth. Either way works)
One thing we would do, in hindsight, would be to stitch in some scraps or padding in the inside of the top of the head. This would help the head stand up better on a small hand.

You’ll also need a mouth. Here’s a couple we did:
The Fluffyhead has a mouth with lips, created by turning the puppet inside out and stitching an oval of fabric on the inside.
The People Eater’s “scary” mouth was done by whipstitching on the mouth from the outside.

The rest is all embellishment and adding personality.

Arms: Since ours were for 3.5 year olds, we decided against arms, as they are hard for small kids to manipulate. If you like you could just stitch on non-functional arms.
Horn: For the people eater, I made the horn by cutting out a circle of sweater fabric, cutting a 2/3 “pie piece” out of it, and wrapping it into a cone. Very trial and error. I stuffed it with a few fabric scraps and stitched it on top of the head with a whip stitch.
Eyes: Sew on buttons, press on toy eyes, cut fabric circles for eyes… For the People eater I used a fabric circle cut out of felted sweater, made a hole in the center for the post of the toy eye, and pressed it through. Then I used a blanket stitch to attach the felted circle to the head.
Nose: Holly’s Fluffyhead had a couple of felt circles bunched and stitched on in the center. You could also do buttons, or whatever.
Other: I cut out wings out of sweater material and used a simple straight stitch (it was getting late!) to sew them to the sides of the People Eater Body. Holly attached a felt star to the belly of the Fluffy head. Use your imagination here!

The finished puppets!

Hope you enjoyed this and it gave you some ideas for a fun evening of puppet making!

Related:

• Octo-puppet – this one is more of a typical tutorial, making an octopus puppet out of old sweaters and buttons.
• Sweater snake
• Elephant Purse

To tide you over, here’s a few pictures of the festival, from my friend and favorite photographer, Grieg Wehr:

Bunches of Festival Pics here.

1. My Little Cthulhu, 2. Cthulhu Cake, 3. Vegetable Cthulhu, 4. Cthulhu Time Steampunk Necklace, 5. Cthulu Charm, 6. Cthulu Jewelry Box, 7. Cthulhu calling shirt, 8. Santa Squid

Here are some cute and cuddly looking Cthulhus from a previous post..

1. bibby, 2. Nifer Fahrion / NifNaks, 3. Hello Cthulu applique, 4. cthulhu2, 5. Day 12 – Clay Cthulhu, 6. cute blue guy, 7. Cthulhu de Fimo, 8. cthulhu_cutie

And you might remember this as well.. Cthulhu serving squid, one of my ‘vintage’ ad posters… I guess I’m guilty too!

Before we start, a reminder to check out all the MSCE April participants — we’ve had some new joiners in the last week. See the list here.

Connecting with Dabbled – All that social networking stuff:
I generally roll my eyes at the phrase social networking, but I will admit I do quite enjoy twitter, and I have managed to get a small Dabbled presence up on Facebook.

Twitter: If you’re on Twitter, feel free to friend me (DotatDabbled).. I can’t friend everyone back (but occasionally I do!) but do message me and introduce yourself.. You’ll find out when new Dabbled posts are up, I post cool links that may not ever make it to Dabbled. Plus just my random musings and pics of my child covering himself in masago. (PS, if you use twitter, I totally agree with Craftypod’s assessment of how to manage twitter) Oh, and if you have a love/hate relationship with twitter, feel free to grab the Come to the Dark Side twitter bird, here.

Facebook: Just started a Dabbled group on Facebook, so if you’re on Facebook, do join, and invite your friends! I post some cool crafty links there (right now I’m featuring those participating in MSCE April). And you’re welcome to post your own links, pictures, or whatever… And if you don’t blog, this is a great way to share your stuff with me and the Dabbled readers! It’s a really small group right now, so I’m not sure where it will go, but I’d love to have more of you guys really involved, especially those who are really into facebook. (PS, you can also find me on Facebook in my artist guise, here. I haven’t done much with this yet, but do join if you like to follow my art, and I’ll try to keep it interesting!)

Flickr: I’m Dot D and the Dabbled Group is here. I’ve met a ton of cool people by friending them, or them friending me, on flickr… and it’s really easy to join the Dabbled group and share your projects there with other Dabbled readers.

I think that’s the limit of my ‘social networking’.. if you’ve got something else you recommend, let me know!

Keeping up with Dabbled and it’s offshoots

Of course you can always follow the Dabbled RSS feed (and if you follow many blogs, you DO need a feedreader, seriously–I recommend Google, cause they aren’t evil, right?)

… and I sometimes add secret messages, prizes, and such to the bottom of the feed, so if you’re reading this on a feedreader right now, don’t forget to scroll to the bottom.

If you want to see even more of my cool links (plus stalk me, if you’re not on twitter) you can check out my link blog here, or follow it here (RSS)

And of course, my Art Portfolio is here, for those who like that kind of thing.

Supporting Dabbled
I do this site because I really enjoy it, but it is nice to make a few bucks to pay the bills and keep the site going.. Otherwise I’ll have to really go get a real job and who wants that? How would I keep you amused and challenged?

So if you want to support Dabbled, there are a couple of easy things you can do.
– Like something I posted? Link to it, share it with your friends! And you are welcome to use one of my pictures as long as credit/link back given.
– Buy Nancy’s Art. Prints, originals, and commissioning information is here.
– Buy Dabbled stuff. Actually, you can’t right yet. But that is in the works. I’ll keep you posted! If anyone has any ideas, let me know!
– Dabbled Recommends Amazon Store, and buying Amazon through the Dabbled links. (I just started playing around with the store, mostly to save off links to cool stuff I wanted, or wanted to recommend. If you have suggestions of products I should feature, do let me know!) It’s not much, but if you’re buying anyway…
– Also in the far right sidebar, buy from iTunes or buy magazines through Dabbled links. Honestly I’ve pulled most of these ads off, because I don’t think they are that effective. But as long as I have them here, if you’re going to buy anyway, go through Dabbled! :)

– oh, and if you’re a rich art patron or someone who’d like to offer me a dream job, feel free to drop me a line!

Recent

• A more realistic Twitter icon for your site…
• Last week’s Illustration Friday – Impossibility (+ bonus Robot!)
• Rubber Band fun things…
• Make a Hot Wheels Car Launcher — Fun!

Here is another version –> , more suitable for a webpage, maybe. (I created this one in Illustrator, as my MSCEApril for yesterday — I swear one day I’m really going to learn that program). These are CC licensed, so feel free to use them (though of course credit is appreciated).

And without words, HERE.

And even as a “Piece of Flair” for Facebook, here (no text, larger) and here (“come to the dark side”)! Tempt your facebook friends over to the Tweeting Side.

[I was inspired to create this after seeing some of the cool alternative twitter icons that Superpunch linked to!]

Tomorrow… more fun with twitter and social networking sites!

1. The Thai Boxer, 2. lemongrass cooler, 3. Watermelon and Rose Sangria, 4. Chocolate orange martini’s, 5. Bourbon Mint Tea, 6. Kermit Cocktails

Related:

• How to Make Eggnog
• Creepy Halloween Bubble Cocktails
• Halloween-y Cocktail Roundup

I’ve got so much cool stuff to post over the next week or so… I’m trying hard not to just post it all now! My parents were cleaning up their attic, and brought me a stash of old records I had as a kid, so I’ll be sharing those. I do have a limoncello tutorial that I finally got around to writing up. And also the results of my candied lemons. What else? I have some felt that I was sent to review, so I’ll be doing a project with that. And I modded a t-shirt yesterday as my MSCEApril, so I’ll be writing up instructions on that. Plus a stash of comfort food photo recipes that have been hanging out on my harddrive, just waiting. So… Stay tuned!

And if you missed it, two new watercolors yesterday!

Other Flickr Roundups:

• Green Crafting — hey it’s Earth Day!
• Easter Egg Ideas
• April Fools Food
• More posts tagged Flickr Roundup

PS – don’t forget to vote for my instructable, the Hot Wheels Car Launcher!
Vote here: it’s the 7th one in the list.

“At Least Highly Improbable” –

c nancy dorsner 2009 , Watercolor on paper

I sketched this next on, after doing the original sketch for the Improbability above, and then did a very quick watercolor job on it. I like the looseness… it’s a good exercise I think. So, what do you like best?

“Boxed In”

c nancy dorsner 2009 , Watercolor on paper

PS – don’t forget to vote for my instructable, the Hot Wheels Car Launcher!
Vote here: it’s the 7th one in the list.

PPS –
I’ve decided to pick several cool IF’s for this week and link them here:

• Love these unusual(!) cupcakes by CakeSpy
• Alina fighting her computer made me giggle.
• Peter’s work is always lovely.. I especially like Tea Time, here.
• Honor Bowden’s beautiful watercolor women never disappoint.
• Chris Leavens lives in a world even weirder than my own!

Wanna build this? Go check out the instructable here.