Recent Posts

EIGHT TOOLS OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS

Written by Dennis Regling in Uncategorized

Ministry, whether preaching, teaching or even playing a Bible game is communication. Everything we do in ministry depends on our ability to communicate the message to the audience. Of course, I love to do this with puppets, but I also do it with “magic tricks” and story-telling.

Puppets are not just stuffed toys bouncing around behind a stage. They are characters. As their personalities are developed, they become very real to your audience. They can communicate great messages in memorable fashion to your listeners. This is one of the secrets of Sesame Street and the same applies to ministry, teaching the Bible and Christian living.

I believe effective communicators are creative communicators. We are always looking for new ways to bring interesting and unusual illustrations and objects into our messages to engage the listener.

Here’s another list for you:

  • C – Competition
  • R – Recognition
  • E – Expectations
  • A – Affirmations
  • T – Toys & Visual Aids
  • I – Involvement of the audience
  • V – Voice and tone
  • E – Energy

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. As educators, our job is not to get the horse to drink, it is to make him thirsty. Create a thirst for knowledge in your students, and they will learn.

Competition

Not all students respond the same way to competition. Some will thrive on competing with others, some will shirk away. If we push a noncompetitive student into competitive situations, they will fail.

On the other hand, we need to develop in our students the ability and desire to compete with themselves. A student needs to be able to walk away from any task, confident and happy be- cause they know they did their best.

We need to learn how to challenge our students.

If you have highly competitive students that will work hard, it can help students that lack confidence to work in teams. Let the unsure work with the confident. Develop lessons and activities that allow every student to use their skills to their best ability.

Recognition

Students respond to rewards.

Students respond better to rewards than punishments. Find ways to reward not only achievement but also effort.

One school I do assemblies for has a program to encourage students to be involved in the arts outside of the classroom. During the school year, anytime a student attends a show, goes to a museum or the zoo or attends a sporting event, they are to bring the ticket stub to school. Every student who attends at least one cultural event during the school year gets a certificate. A student that attends ten or more events gets a gold seal on the certificate. A simple way to recognize and encourage students.

Perhaps you could do something similar with learning Bible verses or for kids that come to kids club, getting them to attend Sunday School. During VBS programs, any child that brings a first time visitor, even an adult or parent, gets to spin our prize wheel. Mom stays for one VBS program, the child gets to win a prize and I get to share the gospel. Over the years, we have seen a lot of parents get saved and many families join the church.

Find ways to recognize what your students do. Have a chart for extra curricular reading. You might have them present their hobby to the class. Hobbies like stamp collecting, model rail- roading and scrap booking involve skills and knowledge that help a child to grow as a person. When you recognize these as areas that the students are being successful in, the desire and confidence to succeed in other areas grows.

Expectations

Evidence suggests that teachers can improve student learning by encouraging high standards.

The expectations teachers have for their students and the assumptions they make about their potential have a tangible effect on student achievement. Research “clearly establishes that teacher expectations do play a significant role in determining how well and how much students learn” (Jerry Bamburg 1994).

Students tend to internalize the beliefs teachers have about their ability. Generally, they “rise or fall to the level of expectation of their teachers. When teachers believe in students, students believe in themselves. When those you respect think you can, YOU think you can” (James Raffini 1993).

Teachers’ expectations for students-whether high or low-can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, students tend to give to teachers as much or as little as teachers expect of them.

A characteristic shared by most highly effective teachers is their adherence to uniformly high expectations. They “refuse to alter their attitudes or expectations for their students regardless of the students’ race or ethnicity, life experiences and interests, and family wealth or stability” (Barbara J. Omotani and Les Omotani 1996).

Affirmations

A powerful way to help students build confidence and achieve more of their potential is to show them how to revise their limiting beliefs (e.g., “I can’t memorize,” “God can’t use me,” “I never finish what I start.”). Affirmations are powerful tools for helping them replace this negative inner chatter with a more supportive thought.

As a teacher, you need to send positive messages to your students whenever possible. Acknowledge that you can see the efforts they have made. Acknowledge when they do good. When I am doing a program, I let volunteers know when they have followed directions well. Even if they mess up badly, I try to paint it good. I may tell them they are too smart for me, and I take the blame for a failed trick. If they get embarrassed, I remind them what a good sport they are and how happy I am they helped.

Toys & Visual Aids

My shows and my children ministry programs are full of visual aids. Magic tricks, scientific demonstrations, signs and posters all act to reinforce the message I am sending.

Funny props can create interest

Of course, my favorite toys are my puppets. Puppets are animated, cartoonish and engage young and old alike. Puppets can be used to show a character making a bad decision and then how that is resolved. Puppet characters can teach all sorts of lessons through conflict, story-telling, humor, and other theatrical tools.

A good teacher uses visual aids to help their students learn. We remember more of what we see than what we hear. We remember more of what we do than of what we see. Anytime you can introduce a poster, a hands-on activity or a visual demonstration, you are helping your students better understand and remember the material.

In seventh grade, our science teacher used a coffee can, a hose, a candle and some flour to demonstrate a powder explosion. I don’t remember much from seventh grade science class, but I remember that experiment and how it works.

I remember Carl Hollenbeck inhaling on the hose instead of blowing and getting a mouth full of flour. I remember the explosion when he blew into the hose, causing the flour in the can to ignite.

Involvement of the audience

One of the things pastors, teachers and school administrators always notice about my shows is how attentive and involved the students are.

I always use lots of volunteers. This gets students very excited as they see their friends and teachers helping on stage. More important, I use a lot of audience involvement. This means I create opportunities for them to answer questions, clap and even times when yelling out is appropriate.

I often teach Bible classes at the local juvenile detention center. I have discovered that when the teens are allowed to interrupt and ask questions that they are much more attentive than if I just lecture. They become involved. Although I am leading and directing the studies, they feel a part of it.

When you involve the audience, you engage the minds.
When you involve the audience, you engage the minds.

A great teacher finds ways to get their students involved as participants of the learning process, not just spectators. There are times when students need to be quiet and listen, but they also need an outlet for their energy and this builds enthusiasm.

Voice and tone

A good teacher must know how to use their voice. They must create energy and interest as they speak. They must use body movements and gestures to create interest.

In eleventh grade, I had a history teacher who lectured in a constant monotone. It was painfully difficult to listen to him. In contrast, I had a professor in college that was a State Supreme Court justice. He was a pipe smoker, and while he lectured, he moved about, often gesturing with the pipe or simply cleaning it in the science lab sink. This little tool and his energy made for a class I seldom missed. I did quite well in this class because the teacher made me be interested.

Energy

If a speaker is tired, and low key, it becomes very hard to pay attention. As I mentioned above, it was my college professors’ energy level that complimented his gestures and speaking.

Energy implies enthusiasm. When you attack a subject with enthusiasm, your students will likewise respond with enthusiasm.

To have energy and enthusiasm, you must get your rest, then prepare for the class. No matter how many times you have taught a subject, review your notes, read more on the subject. Get yourself ready to soar and your students will follow.

I have presented my “Magic of Science” program thousands of times in schools across the country. I have presented it more than all my other shows combined. Yet it is still my favorite to present. I know it inside out and backwards. Yet every time I present it, I see new faces, laughing and learning.

No matter how many difficulties I may have had on the way to the school, when I step in front of those students, my energy soars. I know they are going to have fun and that energizes me.

As a teacher, your energy level should grow as you gain confidence in the material you are teaching. When you have studied the subject, when you have done it so many times you know what the students will ask before they ask, you should be excited. You learn where the rough spots are, then you find creative ways to get beyond them. You become an expert. You get excited and your students will, too.

These are the tools effective communicators have. As a children’s minister as in all ministry, you must be able to engage your audience in your message.

8 CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE PEOPLE

Written by Dennis Regling in How To,Uncategorized

Ministry requires creativity. Whether using puppets, object lessons or story-telling, engaging your audience is key to getting your message to be memorable and affecting.

As I read history, I find there are certain qualities in all creative people.

  • C – Curious
  • R – Risk Taker
  • E – Enthusiastic
  • A – Active
  • T – Tenacious
  • I – Inventive
  • V – Visionary
  • E – Energetic

Table of Contents

Curious – Creative people are naturally curious people. They need to know what is in that box. They want to know how things work.

Spark a child’s curiosity and you can teach them.

I read a book a few years ago on dog-sledding. I thought it might be a great hobby. After I read it, I realized it would be expensive and time consuming and not nearly as nifty as it sounds. But I was curious.

My librarian is often amazed at the wide selection of books I order in through the inter-library lending system. I get books from libraries all over the state on a myriad of topics.

Curiosity is often the beginning of creativity. When you begin asking questions like “What is that?” What does this do?” “How does it work?” and “Why do we…?” you are on the way to a creative answer.

Children know instinctively to ask these questions. Fran Lebowitz expressed it like this: “Children ask better questions than adults. ‘May I have a cookie?’ ‘Why is the sky blue?’ and ‘What does a cow say?’ are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than ‘Where’s your manuscript?’ ‘Why haven’t you called?’ and “Who’s your lawyer?”

It is by becoming childlike that you can recapture the creativity that isn’t afraid of obvious questions.

Risk Taker – Creative people are inherently risk takers. We think outside the box. We try things that may cause us to be ridiculed.

” We are told people don’t like change. But actually, people love change if it brings hope of something better,” Mike Vance, Think Out of Of The Box

Taking risks means daring to try new approaches or ideas with no predictable control over results or consequences. In other words, taking action when the outcome is unknown. Back when I managed other people’s businesses, I often made changes to how things were done at work without permission.

When the ideas were good, the boss would always compliment me, but also tell me I should have asked first. The thing is, if I asked first, the answer would have been no. Large companies fight change. When the idea was bad, I usually covered it up and no one ever knew.

Being creative, I took chances with my career. It made me very successful but not promotable. Companies promote followers, not the creators. We tend to rock the boat.

Enthusiastic – Creative people are enthusiastic. They are always thinking, looking for new ideas and quick to share them.

I am always bouncing ideas off my wife. Some good, some crazy. She lets me know which are which, too. I need deadlines, or I won’t get anything done. I get an idea, I run with it with childlike abandon. Then, I get another idea and I am off in another direction.

It’s the enthusiasm that keeps me going. The deadlines though make me sort through ideas, develop them and produce finished results.

Active – Creative people are active people. They are not watching television for long periods of time. They are working. A creative mind must be doing something.

In the same way, if you want to be more creative, be more active. Mess around with your arts and craft supplies, read a book on a new subject, take a class and see the creative juices start to flow. Try out your ideas. As they fail, you will learn what doesn’t work and get new ideas to make them successful.

Activity is key to creativity.

” The human race is divided into two classes. Those that go ahead and do something and those who sit and ask, ‘why wasn’t it done the other way?'” Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Tenacious – Creative people are tenacious. They will not quit until they achieve their goal

My weakness seems to be that I can flit from one project to another, leaving many things undone. On the other hand, when something needs to be done, when there is no other choice, I stick to it.

A few summers ago, I decided to cut down a tree that was too close to the house. A big tree. I thought it was leaning away from the house, but au contraire. When I had cut almost through the trunk, the tree started leaning towards the house.

In an almost comedic chain of events, I went about getting that tree down. I bought a come-along (a winch) to pull the tree away from the house and down. The hardware man picked out a nice length of polyester rope he said would work. Unfortunately, the rope had so much stretch in it, the winch ran out of tightening cable before I could apply enough force to bring the tree down.

Plan two, I tied the rope to the ball hitch of my pickup truck to pull the tree down. As I gunned the truck, the rope met maximum stretch, then like a slingshot, snapped back, swinging the back of my truck into a small shed. With the shed destroyed and a dented fender, I moved onto plan three.

I attached the come-along to the ball hitch of the truck with a lock and chain. As I winched in the rope, instead of the tree coming down, the truck slid backwards.

Plan four was next. With the come-along still attached to the truck, I tightened the rope then, I started the truck to pull down the tree. With the slack already removed, the truck would not slingshot this time. The chain broke, the come-along went flying. It ended up twisted and bent from hitting the ground.

In less than an hour, I had destroyed my lawnmower shed, destroyed a brand new come-along and dented my truck. The tree was still standing and still leaning precariously towards my house. I ended up paying a local logger to take it down. Although my efforts failed to bring down the tree, because of my tenacity, I discovered several ways that do not work.

Despite this disastrous lesson, my wife marvels at how good I am at solving problems when they arrive in our lives. She also says being married to me is never boring.

” The first requisite for success is to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary,” Thomas Edison

” The first requisite for success is to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary,” Thomas Edison

Inventive They say necessity is the mother of invention. The creative person needs to invent. We see new applications for old ideas.

In my math show I demonstrate the power of compound interest with a checker board and a story about a king and a jester. The original idea is the old trick of putting a penny on the first day of a calendar, then putting double the amount on each of the following days. By the end of the month, the amount is an in- credible $10,737,418.23.

I changed the calendar to a checkerboard, which means 64 days. The total becomes over eight septillions. I added a story about the king and jester and I ended up with an informative and educational routine that is very memorable.

Visionary – Creative people have a vision. They see what they want to accomplish and apply their skills to that end. As we reach goals and encounter new challenges, our vision changes, too.

” Vision is the ability to see what change is needed and how it will benefit people,” David Pottruck

  • Student: “This course wasn’t relevant.”
  • Professor: “If something as vast as mathematics or science or history can pass through your brain without even scraping the sides on the way through, that’s a pretty big hole. Are you sure it’s the course that doesn’t relate to anything?”

To the curious mind, all things are relevant. We are just searching for relevance.

As an educator, I find if I can make a subject relevant to the student, they will develop an interest. Do the young men in your group like athletics? Why not tell the story of Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner who refused to race on the Sabbath?

Do the girls like ponies? Time to talk about Jeremiah 12:5 and not growing weary in serving the Lord. Be sure to have your stick horses on hand.

Energetic – Creative people have lots of energy. Often our sleep is interrupted because our brains will not stop thinking. Our energy is our enthusiasm in action. A creative person channels their energy into activity.

Creative people dive into tasks. Personally, I am a morning person. I like to get up at dawn and dive into the day’s work. I am awake and alert and ready to go. If I get momentum, I will not stop until midnight. I have lazy days, and I also have a tough time starting at all if I start late. But when I am at a task, my mind gets focused and my creative mind just goes.

I find energy is fueled by enthusiasm. Study, prepare and get enthusiastic about your next project and watch your energy levels take off.

How Can I Be Creative In Ministry To Children?

Written by Dennis Regling in How To,Uncategorized

THE IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVITY IN MINISTRY

Creativity is the way in which education is practically nurtured and developed in children that helps them to become independent, confident and creative human beings. In ministry, this same creativity helps these children to grow in their faith in God.

When a Bible story or Christian topic is presented to students, it is how interesting it is made to them that keeps them engaged and wanting to find out more about it. Encouraging them to research this subject themselves by giving them assignments and projects is one good way to encourage creativity and thinking in young minds. The more they learn and research and the more questions they ask, the more inquisitive their minds become.

Solving problems that arise out of given projects cultivates creativity as in the process there is more new material being discovered.
Worksheets, crafts and challenges put the learning right in the hands of the children. My daughters, now 9 years old, love crafts. Hands-on creativity will hold their attention, and by incorporating a Bible verse or Bible account into the craft makes it a great learning tool. They remember the lesson because they were engaged in it.

My daughters love to read their Bible. They will read a parable or story in the Bible and then want to tell me about what they read. We will find them sitting in our living room, in the chair together, reading the Bible.

We thank God for giving them this desire, but we have also built it into them. We often talk about the Bible in our everyday life and share verses that are relevant to situations that come up. But we also read to them from the Bible or refer them to something to look up in the Bible. Everyday tasks and activities often become object lessons.

If you can get your students, young and old, to see the Bible as relevant and challenging, you can create life long learners and disciples of Christ.

Problem solving and researching material helps children to develop new ideas and new ways of thinking and individuality and originality develops. Sticking to one standard way of learning without seeking answers themselves will make a subject boring and tedious and before long the student loses interest in it. It is the teaching style used by a teacher that can bring interest and enthusiasm into any subject.

Teaching a topic from a lesson book can be vastly different from actually bringing in pictures and objects related to the topic or presenting a skit to get a practical feel of what actually happened there and in what surroundings.

Some children show creativity in art, music and design where it is easy to express yourself on paper or through playing an instrument. Creativity is as individual as every student is and while some students have a natural talent for being creative, others need to be encouraged to develop their creative talents. It is therefore not necessary that all students become creative geniuses as it is dependent upon a child’s character and how easy it is for them to be expressive and creative.

Creative skills are easy to instill in young children when they are at pre-school age where everything that is being taught is done in a practical way. The children make things, use drawing and painting skills, they sing and they dance and all the time they are learning things about the world and everything in it. These skills need to be maintained in later school years so that children can solve problems and develop their thinking skills even better.

Making handicrafts, taking part in discussions, having debates, cooking different recipes, doing projects, painting and drawing are all different aspects of creativity. Music and drama are other fields that can help channel a child’s talent towards towards an interest in scripture and service but also promote confidence and a feeling of well being and happiness in the child’s educational and personal life.

CRAYOLA THINKING

When we enter kindergarten, we are given a box of crayons. The colors of the rainbow are at our fingertips to express our- selves. By the time we finish high school, we are using a single black pen.

Children are naturally imaginative and creative. A stick becomes a sword and they are transported to a faraway castle in their minds to fight dragons. Bicycles become race cars. Boxes become forts. My Dad had several junk cars behind our house which became spaceships for me and my friends to travel the universe.

Kindergarten children believe they are great artists, singers, dancers and actors. By the time they finish school, most systems have destroyed that optimism and enthusiasm in exchange for conformity and “realistic expectations.” During their lives, they here expressions like, “Why would you think that?” or “Stop being silly.”

Their imaginations are stifled, then killed and buried.

Unfortunately, many of these now unimaginative conformists become Sunday school teachers. They teach the lessons, but they never create the learning experience that motivates young minds to success. Perhaps you are one of those teachers. Perhaps your creativity lies dormant because you were lead to believe it no longer exists.

It’s time to break out the Crayolas. Get excited again. What did you enjoy as a kid? Did you enjoy playing dress-up, puppets, painting, Play-Doh, or trying weird science tricks you learned at the library? Do it again.

Reignite your passion for fun and incorporate it into your teach- ing. I love magic. I have used this love and the skills I developed to create routines for science shows. I have used magic tricks in preaching to young people and old. I have twisted balloon animals and used them to illustrate a Bible lesson I gave to residents at a nursing home.

The very first school show I did several years ago got this evaluation from the principal, “the presenter looked like he was having fun .”

I now hear things like, “I have been teaching science for 28 years. This is the best science assembly and workshop I have ever seen,” Mrs. Blessinger, Science Teacher Renwood Elementary School, Parma, Ohio.

I just hope they still see that I am having fun. And I encourage you to have fun teaching children.

A SIMPLE FORMULA FOR CREATIVITY

Imagination is intelligence having fun.
I wanted to come up with a simple way of encouraging you to be creative. The result was:

  • S– Stimuli
  • I– Ideas
  • M– Make a purchase
  • P– Play
  • L– Learn
  • E– Execute

Stimuli – I like to be surrounded by things and people that stimulate my imagination. I am always looking for new ideas. I love to visit the dollar stores and craft stores. As I cruise the aisles, different things catch my eye and I ask myself, how could I use that to teach a Bible lesson or illustrate a Christian virtue?

At the craft stores they sell inexpensive foam animal masks. I haven’t figured out yet how I can use them, but someday, I will do something that involves animals and my volunteers will be wearing them.

Reading a variety of books and even children’s books can trig- ger ideas. I love learning about Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Next year I am thinking about doing a pioneer theme for VBS. Coonskin caps will be the rage. A missionary story about David Brainard, an early American missionary to the Indians will be part of the nightly activities.

One of my dearest friends, evangelist and camp director, George Griffis loves history. I have heard him preach incredibly engaging sermons using the Spartan Wars and the sinking of the Titanic as similitudes to the Christian life.

Teens and adults may not be as interested in puppets as children, (actually, they are!), but an interesting piece of history or science can create a level of curiosity and interest that draws them into the lesson and opens their ears and minds to hear the Bible message it illustrates.

Ideas – Next time you are at the store, look at various things and ask yourself how you could use that to teach a lesson. So when you see something that gives you an idea, buy it. Put it on the shelf where you can see it and let the idea form.

Ideas are also free. Read books. Read Grimm’s fairy tales. Read the little newsletters some restaurants have with little anecdotes. Read the Reader’s Digest. There is an old tale about words being like feathers. Once they hit the wind, you cannot take them back. I used this idea when I wrote my Character Education show to illustrate respect and using kind words.

A good story goes a long way when teaching lessons to your students.

A good story goes a long way when teaching young and old.

Make the purchase – I buy things. Last year, I saw small dry erase boards for a dollar. I bought three. I haven’t used them yet, but I have an idea to use them in a game show type setting.

In my physics show, I use large rat traps to explain elastic energy and potential and kinetic energy. I use them to break plastic eggs from the dollar store. A great lesson, a powerful visual and things get destroyed. A perfect lesson. From there, it is easy to talk about our potential energy in Christ and the kinetic energy (energy in action) of sharing the Gospel.

Play – I take the new toys home and experiment. Sometimes, I don’t know what I will do with the stuff I buy, but I experiment with it. I have fun. I look for ways to make them interesting to other people. I have a hand held egg beater I bought several years ago. One of these days, I am going to incorporate it into a trick. It cost a dollar, but it looks funny if you hold it to your forehead and turn the handle, making the beaters spin. This will be some part of an imaginary device.

Buy things and play with them. You will have fun and you never know what great idea will come.

Learn – I read books on many subjects. More importantly, I study hard when I produce new shows for churches or schools. Amazingly, some of the best books to learn from are the ones written for children. The ideas are related in a way that children understand. The same way you want to relate them to your students.

I also read advanced books and look up trivia. Trivia is great for students. Trivia can be gross or silly or thought-provoking. It also helps me to keep the teachers interested. When I do a program, I always have material and jokes tucked in that will surprise and interest the teachers.

Execute – Take your ideas and try them out. Show your family or your Sunday school class.
I like to try things out on my wife. She gives me great feedback and helps me to know when I am off base or scoring a home run. When I first wrote my math show, I had a routine with a box where the ends seem to change places without reason. I built the box. It worked great and it was the coolest little gadget ever. My wife said it didn’t play well. She said the audience wouldn’t really grasp “the magic.” I left it in the show, and sure enough, the only time I performed it, it fell flat.

As a magician, I have also learned that there are two types of tricks. Those devised to fool audiences and those devised to fool magicians. New magicians tend to buy the tricks that fool them. They are learning methods and simple tricks don’t fool them anymore. They forget that they still fool the uninformed. The more complicated tricks are often too convoluted for the average person to follow and make for poor show material.

I no longer buy tricks that fool me. I look for tricks that are easy to do and can be presented in an entertaining manner. People are still fooled and even if they know how it is done, they are entertained.

It is the same with teaching the Bible. Often the stories we learned as children, like the account of David & Goliath, or Jonah, seem simple and common to us, but to both young and old, these stories still fascinate and engage.

I must test every effect and illustration before it goes into a Bible lesson or a school show. Stories, objects, and demonstrations are chosen for their ability to grab and hold the interest of the student and to present knowledge in an easy to understand and remember manner.

As a teacher, you do not need elaborate demonstrations and costumes to be interesting. A homemade paper sack headdress can be used just as effectively as a $500 native American costume to teach about the pilgrims bringing the Gospel to America.

Make it entertaining. That’s my “formula.” Sorry it couldn’t be more SIMPLE.

Finally, I have found the most important rule when using inexpensive items to inspire your creativity, is to buy them NOW and think later. This goes against the logic of being thrifty; however, creative people are seldom financial wizards. The problem with places like Dollar Tree and Big Lots is that if you don’t buy it when you see it, you won’t find it when you want it later. If you buy it now and you don’t use it later, it was a buck, get over it.

Welcome To Puppet Ministry World

Written by Dennis Regling in Uncategorized

I have been active in ministering to children, teens and adults for 24 years. I have discovered puppets to be an amazing tool for reaching people of all ages. Puppets are animated, fun and engaging. They are a wonderful way to pull people into a conversation and hold their attention.

I have created this page to share with you the magic of puppetry in ministry and teaching. You can look forward to how-to articles, free resources, puppet scripts and more.

Puppets Ministry
Puppets Ministry

How To Make Puppet Eyes

Written by admin in Arm&Rod Puppets,How To

The eyes make a puppet. Using the right materials and getting the proper placement of the eye and the pupil on the eye is the key to creating a great puppet.

What materials can I make eyes out of?

Plastic spoons for eyes.

Plastic Spoons. Plastic spoons come in a variety of sizes and shapes. They are one of the most common materials used for puppet eyes.

To use a spoon, you cut off the handle with scissors or your Dremel tool. You will want to sand the edge where you cut. The spoon bowl can then have an adhesive pupil attached or you can drill a hole in the spoon and insert a teddy bear eye.

This fellow has teddy bear eyes inserted into plastic spoons as eyes.
Craft Foam Eyes

Craft Foam. Craft foam can be used for the whites of the eyes and for the pupils. For pupils, you may also want to create an iris from one color foam, say blue, and then attach a black pupil. You may create the whites of the eyes with the craft foam and then attach a teddy bear eye.

Buttons. Buttons can make interesting eyes. Dome-shaped buttons with the single eyelet on the back work really well. Just remove the eyelet with your Dremel and sand the back smooth and the button can be glued to the puppet or to the whites of the eye as a pupil.

Teddy Bear or Doll Eyes. Teddy bear eyes are plastic eyes that have a colored iris and a dark pupil. They have a post on the back and little washers that lock onto the post to hold the eye in place.

These eyes can be used alone or integrated into a larger eye using a plastic spoon or other material for the white of the eye.
Teddy bear eyes are available at craft stores an come in a variety of sizes and colors.

Ping Pong Balls. Ping pong balls can be used as they come or cut in half. The ink on the ball can usually be removed with a little rubbing alcohol. Balls can be attached using hot glue or contact cement. Pupils made from adhesive vinyl or adhesive velvet or felt can be attached to the ball to complete the eye. You can also use teddy bear eyes, but you will need to drill a hole for the post.

Ping Pong Balls for eyes with foam eyelids.

Cast Eyes.
1) Molded Puppet eyes can be made in molds. Some puppeteers use silicone candy or soap molds while others create their own molds.
To mold eyes, you will need OOMOO 30
and Smooth Cast Plastic.

  • I buy my OOMOO 30 here, at Amazon:CLICK
  • Amazon also has the Smooth Cast, available here: CLICK

You will also need a blank for your eyes. You can make blanks from plastic spoons, from plastic measuring spoons, from plastic eggs and alsmost any other item which has the size and shape you want.

I used plastic measuring spoons when I made my molds. I cut the handles of the spoons and sanded them smooth. A set of six spoons gave me six different sizes. I placed the spoon bowls face down in a box that my personal checks came in.

Mix the OOMOO 30 according to the instructions and pour into the box until the spoons (or your blanks) are covered. Let set over night.

Once the silicone sets, you are ready to cast eyes. Just mix the Smooth Cast according to the instructions and pour into your mold. It sets pretty quickly and you will have perfect eyes ready to go on your puppet.

Silicone mold made from OOMOO-30 and cast eyes. The colored domes are the bowls from measuring spoons I used as blanks.

2) Vacuum Formed. Some puppet makers use dental vacuum forming machines to create eyes. Once you have your original for your eye, you can make as many as you need quickly and cheaply. The vacuum forming machine though will run you about $300 dollars. Be sure to get a two-post machine. This will ensure you get perfect eyes every time.

Pre-made eyes are available online.

Premade eyes. Premade puppet eyes are also available. You can find them in some craft shops and also online. The one problem with these is you cannot place the pupils where you want, as they come prepainted on the eye.

How To Make Pupils

Self-adhesive velvet – I love self-adhesive velvet for pupils.
To punch out perfect circles, I have an assortment of paper punched that scrapbookers use.

Self-adhesive vinyl for Cricut machines also works well and will give your pupils a little shine. You can also put a smaller dark circle on a larger colored circle of vinyl to create an iris and pupil.

When attaching the pupil to the eye, place the adhesive material on the end of a needle. Place the pupils on the ye, and adjust until you get the placement you want. By using the needle, you can lightly put the pupil in various places until you are happy. Then the pupil can be pressed down and the needle slid away.

Pupils can also be painted on or you can use buttons or doll eyes.

Highlights – A little white dot at the top of the eye simulates a light reflection on the eye. You can make a perfect little circle on your pupil with the round head of a straight pin. Be sure the highlights are on the same spot on each eye and not mirrored to one another. The highlights suggest light reflecting off the ye, thus the light would be coming from the same direction on each eye.

Topstick on fleece, ready to create an eyelid.

Topstick Clear Hairpiece Tape is a two-sided tape used with toupees. It also works great for attaching pupils to the eyes of your puppet.

If you use a hole punch to make your pupil, just punch an identical size out of Topstick. Attach this disk to the back of your pupil and attach the pupil to the eye.

Use a needle or pin when placing adhesive pupils to your puppet. Put the tip of the needle just under the pupil, sticking slightly to the pupil. You can then place the pupil on the eye more precisely.

If the pupil is off, by lifting the needle, you can lift the pupil and re-adjust it. Once the pupil is properly placed, you can slide the needle off and press the pupil down into place.

Creating Eyelids

Eyelids can be made of fleece. The fleece color may match or contrast the puppet’s face, depending on the look you are going for. You can also use thin craft foam. This will give you a choice of many different colors.

Topstick can again be your secret weapon here. Eyelids can be glued to the puppet eye with contact cement or hot glue, but Topstick is quicker and easier.

Place the Topstick on the back of your eyelid material. Do not cut the material to size before it is on the eye.

Stretch the eyelid across the eye, finding the position you want. Once the eyelid is properly placed, then trim the eyelid around the edge. You can also put a little hot glue or contact cement on the back of the eye and stretch the eyelid material around the top of the eye and onto the back. This will give you some material to glue your eye to the puppet.

You can place eyelids on the top and bottom of the eye, or just on the top.
A thin strip of self-adhesive velvet or craft foam can be placed on the edge of the eyelid. This can really make your eye pop and look great! If using craft foam, again Topstick is your friend.

Eyelids with a strip of adhesive velvet below.

Pipecleaner can also be used to line the eyelid, giving an eyelash effect. If you fold the pipe cleaner over itself three or four times and then twist the pipe cleaner around itself several times, you will get a nice size for eyelashes.

Eyelashes
You can purchase doll eyelashes or doll eyelash strip to add eyelashes to your puppet’s eyes. With girl puppets, this is a nice touch. You can also use false eyelashes.
Craft foam can also be used to make eyelashes.

Eyebags.
Eyebags go below the eye, not on it. To make an eye bag, cut a crescent piece of fleece to the desired size and Topstick or glue it below the eye. Experiment with various sizes and designs until you get the look you want.
You can also carve an eyebag out of foam and cover it with fleece.

Eyelids, eyebags, eyelashes and eye highlights all add to the character of the puppet you are building. Add as many or few of these features as you want, but be careful not to create a “salad bar” face, by over-doing the features. Sometimes the simplest look is the best look.

How to attach the eyes to the puppet.

There are several ways to attach the eyes to your puppet. If using teddy bear eyes, you can poke a hole through the puppet head and use the eye post and lock washer to attach it. Tightening down the washer will also pull the eye into the foam a little, creating an eye socket.

You can also use hot glue or contact cement to attach the eyes. Double stick tape, like Topit, is great for holding eyes in place, yet will allow you to move them or replace them later.

Proper placement of the eyes – the Muppet Triangle. Placement of the eyes on the puppet is crucial. Don Sahlen developed what became known as the Magic Triangle or Muppet Triangle. This is the placement of the eyes to create focus.

In the Muppet Triangle, the pupils are slightly cross-eyed, not centered and looking forward. The perfect set-up creates an equilateral triangle between the two pupils and the end of the puppet nose.

The important thing when placing the eyes is that they appear focused on you when you look straight on at the puppet face.

To learn how to make puppet eyelashes, see my article HERE.

Here is a short video I made about the various puppet eyes I have used.

Be sure to check out my RESOURCES page here to find the materials and tools I use. CLICK HERE

Turning Puppets Into Profit: https://amzn.to/3vJ5GqC

How To Sell Puppets At A Craft Show

Written by admin in How To,Uncategorized

Selling Your Puppets and Other Crafts
There are many ways to sell the products that you create. Many puppet builders rely on craft shows so I’ll cover this method of selling, and remember that most of the techniques mentioned below can also be applied towards your business if you own a store.

How To Sell Puppets At A Craft Show

When selling at craft shows, you have to cover a lot of issues that could cause major headaches if not properly handled before hand.

If you’re managing your booth alone you must consider how best to handle several tasks at once.

You may have a customer wanting to pay for your item, with a group of teenagers standing to the side trying to pick up one of your items freely and a mother on the other side with a child who has melted ice cream all over her wee little fingers.

The mother, of course, is too busy looking at your items to notice that her child is covering your Antron fleece covered, a full-body puppet with eye mechanisms with chocolate.

Selling hand-crafted puppets at a craft show is a fun and easy way to make money.

What do you do? Do you panic, freak out and get ill at those visiting your booth? No, that’s not a wise thing to do because it’ll kill sales. What you do is prepare ahead of time so that you don’t encounter such nonsense.

First you set your booth in such a way as to protect your smaller items for those times you have to focus on paying customers, so that you can safely turn your back for a few moments and know that nothing will be damaged or stolen.

Put your smaller items in the back of your booth, and always keep your money with you in an apron pocket. Have your larger items on the ends of your booth and outside of your booth, because it’s much harder for people to walk off with your larger items than it is for them to the smaller ones that slip into pockets easily, like little finger puppets or accessories.

Puppets can be stained by little hands, remember that children attend shows and that sometimes their parents aren’t as attentive as they should be when they are browsing your booth.

Have some inexpensive puppets that children can play with.

Make sure that your booth is also decorated attractively. A boring or depressing booth doesn’t help your sales much. Make sure you tables are covered in attractive coverings that are colorful, and that you make your booth look as much like a comfortable home as you possibly can.

The more comfortable you make your booth for your customers, the longer they will linger and the greater your chances are of making a sale.

Put labels on your puppets so people know who made it and where to buy another.

To make these labels, you would print your business information on special paper made for iron on transfers. This paper can be obtained at any office supply store.

Next iron your information onto cloth ribbon. By using cloth ribbon instead of paper, your labels will last much longer and the chances of them being removed are much less than if you used regular paper labels.

Another thing you can do to help increase your sales, would be to do something creative with your booth that would draw more customers to it.

A video running on a televison showing some of the methods you use to build a quality puppet can help increase value. When they see the time and care used to make a strong mouth plate or to attach the arms can set your puppets apart frommass-produced models. An instructional video playing, showing people having fun learning to puppeteer can help motivate potential buyers.

I encountered a gentleman one year that was selling little puppets in his booth, but instead of just sitting his puppets on a shelf he instead made his booth look like a playhouse and he gave little puppet shows to draw customers.

He even went so far as to teach the children how to use the puppets in a variety of different ways. The children loved this guy and his puppets so much that he really made a killing.

When you provide demonstrations for your customers, and get more involved with showing them how useful your products are then you’ll definitely see an increase in your sales.

If you just sit in a chair all day with your products on a shelf, then you’re not giving visitors much of a reason to stop by your booth. I see many crafters just sitting in their booths with this dull, bored look on their faces and this is truly something sad to see.

If you’re not excited about your products, how in the world can you dare expect anyone else to get excited about them?

Get off your butt and show some enthusiasm about your merchandise and you’ll certainly see an increase in your sales. On the other hand if you’re already showing enthusiasm then forge that statement, but I have found that it’s rare to see a crafter who really seems to enjoy selling their products.

If you own a store, you can also do demonstrations in it. Just because you have a storefront doesn’t mean you shouldn’t educate your shoppers a bit about how wonderful your fine products are.

Now I’d like to share with you one more tactic before I conclude this chapter. There is one thing that most crafters overlook, that could increase their profits 300% if they just applied this tactic.

So many crafters make it a habit of arriving to set up their booths early, then sitting there a whole weekend selling before they pack up and leave.

I have never seen another crafter promote their booth BEFORE the show, and although I certainly hope I’m not the only person that does this, it is a pretty sad thing for most crafters to overlook.

I guess most crafters expect people to just show up, and I know at most shows that plenty of people do arrive, but by time they get to your booth they could very well be broke.

So how can you ensure that they look for you before they look for any other booth?

A simple solution would be to distribute flyers. Create a simple one page flyer that you can hand out to people in the area BEFORE the show starts. Make sure that your flyer includes adequate details about your items, and stresses the benefits of your items.

How To Sell Puppets At A Craft Show

You’re selling your products and you want others to know how wonderful your products are. Let them know that you’ll be at the show, before the show even starts, without relying on the fact that they may eventually find your booth.

You want them at your booth early when they are still excited and still have money to spend. Not at the end of the day when they are tired, hungry, ill, broke and ready to go home.

Make sure that you include accurate details about your booth as well, so that they can find your booth easily. You’ll definitely see an increase in sales if you practice this one small technique alone.

Also, please take a moment to check out the recommended resources section, and remember to sign up for our newsletter.

Make Money At t ales
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION