*Welcome to LASH Seed Studios Blog page*
Today we are showing you how to make your very own muppet-like puppet!
What you will need to start: fabric- fleece, terrry or something similar that has some stretch. (about 1 yard, 1/2 yard for smaller muppets) scissors, hot glue, tape, heavy duty thread, felt, foam, batting, poly fill, paper, foam risers and cardboard.
For my puppet I used vintage skin tone terry and fleece for the hair, eyebrows and beard. The mouth is black felt with a red craft foam tongue. The eyes are the same terry and black and white felt. The tee shirt is black polyester with bias tape edges. For the body I stuffed the arms with poly fill and the head is a mix of 1 1/2 In. thick foam over the carbord mouth and the skull I hand molded with the thick foam stitched together the seam and covered the whole skull with batting to smooth it all out then stiched that to the mouth. After you insert the mouth/skull and it fills the fabric head well glue the edge of the mouth fabric up around the edge of the cardboard mouth. If the head looks a little funny go in with small clumps of poly fill and stuff/ fill any gaps to make the head smooth. This is a good way to add more to the chin area.
Step one: Make body, arms and mouth.
To make mouth- cut two strong carboard half circles and lay them flat using strong wide packing tape to tape them together, leaving a small gap between the flat sides to make sure the mouth can bend and move freely. Cover the other side with your black felt or fabric and add your heart shaped foam tongue. On my muppet I attatched thick foam to the back sides of the mouth.
*Try fitting the mouth in and making sure the corners of the mouth line up, if not cut slivers off the mouth untill it fits and/or nip the fabric at the corners of the mouth opening to make the mouth fit properly before covering the front or gluing the mouth in the head.
Sew on arms by hand with strong thread, pin on first to line them up evenly and see they are properly placed.
Step two: make paper test face and attatch with foam risers. I strongly recomended step. If you do not have foam risers you could try rolls of tape. I stuck the face to my sewing room wall afterward :)
For my puppets hair I cut 3 long strips of skinny fringe fleece and glued them on in rows.
Leave the eye pupils and or irises till the very last step of your puppet and make sure the eyes focus on something.
Step three: Make face, attach the parts to the head and make any clothes or accessories.
I found it easier to use tape and hot glue to finish the eyes. Use your paper face pieces as a pattern. To make the nose take styrofoam craft ball cut in half and cover with "skin fabric".
You can also use larger craft balls cut in half for the eyes cover them in white fabric and attatch with glue and thread. Or use clear craft balls that come apart and spray paint the inside white then glue them on to the head. I found my eyes easier to attatch then the clear ball eyes but it's your choice.
For the shirt a cut two pieces of black polyester in a quick generic tee shirt shape and added a taller collar and tacked the neck up around the puppet with thread so it stayed up. You may also want to tac the body to the clothes you make around the bottom so your hand can slide in freely.
I hope this has been helpful please write us with any questions or feel free to send us pictures of your finished muppet- like puppet and we will gladly post them to our blog page! Happy Puppeting!!
*Hand Painted TShirt*
(Gift for a friend)
Finished- three coats of a mix of metalic purple fabric paints! My own octopus design, hand painted.
The first coat :)
I can never resist making cute matching tags for the things I make ;D
*Handbag for my niece*
So it's almost my niece's birthday and this year she wanted a purse :)
This is the style she liked....
This is what she is getting! Keeping in mind she will be 14, loves and wanted it in bright orange and also likes plaid.
Crisp and wonderfully bright vintage fabric with dark blue cotton duck trim around top with eyelets on back and large studs on front. I did not have a pattern for this just looked at the picture and winged it! :D I love it and want to keep it....hehehehe
I also cant resist making matching mini's for a lot of my purses this one is a little fancy cell phone case with arm strap, velcro closer and is lightly padded.
She is spoiled :)
Here is a scarf a made her for Christmas this past year I just loved this dang thing! It was some of the softest fabric I have ever felt! Made the rockin/weird pin too with vinyl and felt.
Making a body form from a store mannequin
Start with press and seal wrap covering the entire area of the mannequin that you wish to duplicate, make sure you press it down well. Then rip up a large paper bag into small scraps and tape these scraps to the mannequin smoothing everything out as you go. The thick paper scraps will help make the shell more stiff and study. Do this until there are a few layers over the whole area.
When you are satisfied carefully cut the layers off and gently peel away from mannequin. Tape the seam close on both sided. I then reinforced the neck and arm holes with cardboard. You should now have your shell. 
Now you are ready to stuff your body form shell, I used leftover fabric scraps but you can use stuffing, old clothing or whatever you have on hand.
*Stuff a small amount into your shell then find a large dowel, old handle, sturdy cardboard tubing or something similar to act as a sort of "spine" support. Place in shell and stuff around until your form is stiff and won't press in easily. This is a very important step or your form will most likely sag and bend under it's own weight. 
Then trace the bottom of the real mannequin onto sturdy cardboard and cut out. Place this peice onto the bottom of your form and finish taping until you have a fully stuffed and taped form.
We needed our form for photographing mainly jewelry so we wanted a nice clean flat white form but if you want to make one of these forms remember you can paint it whatever color you want or cover it in something else like paper or fabric. Make it super glossy or add a stand! 
All finished after many coats of flat white spray paint and a few light sandings in between. :)
*Please email us with any questions you may have on how to make your own muppet!
lash@lashseedstudios.com
This is the quick pattern I made for my muppet you can play with the shape a little if you like. Cut two of the head/body pieces and sew them right sides together, leaving the mouth and bottom open. Cut four of the arms and sew them right sided together leaving the end open to stuff.
Shown below with heavy-duty cardboard tubing acting as "spine".
Form taped, stuffed, reinforced and ready to add plaster! You can stop at this point or cover with something other than plaster. Or you could make a slip cover type fabric cover.
I only had a small amount of plaster impregnated strips so I did one layer of the strips then a layer of plain plaster, which was too messy, so being a part-time house painter over the years I opted for good ol' wall spackle I used about a 3 lb. tub, carefully smoothing thin layers and letting dry over night. In the middle of these many layers of spackle I reinforced the bottom edge and around the neck with linen tape then covered this with more layers of spackle.
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