How To Make Craft Foam Puppet Teeth
For most of the teeth I make for puppets, I use craft foam. I use three layers, which give a nice, wide base for gluing to the puppet mouth.
- cut three rectangles of craft foam slightly larger than the size you want your teeth. One should be white and two should be red, black or pink.
- Glue the three pieces together in a stack with the white piece on top
- Cut into your basic tooth shape.
- Using a razor blade, cut into the foam to separate the teeth. ONLY cut through the top, white layer of foam.
- It only takes one thin slice for the separation. The gap opens nicely when the teeth are curved.
- Curve the teeth slightly to expose the color underneath and attach to your puppet’s mouth.
- The slight curve provides a separation between the teeth and makes for a great one-piece set of teeth.
Other Materials For Puppet Teeth
You can make puppet teeth out of fleece.
- Cut two or more of your basic teeth shape out of fleece
- Stitch them together to make one thick piece
- Run vertical stitches with your sewing machine where you want the teeth to be separated.
- You could also draw the separations with a marker instead of sewing.
Crayola has a product called Model Magic. It’s a light-weight material that you mold like clay, and let it dry. It feels like fun-foam, but you can shape it however you want. It comes in lots of colors, including white. Once it dies, it can be painted.
If you use Model Magic, make sure you paint it with a few layers of glues first. it’ll keep it from breaking apart on you.
Check out the current price for Model Magic on Amazon HERE.
Sponge makeup applicators are a firm foam and make some great looking teeth. It just takes a little snip with the scissors to shape them.
Items mentioned in this article:
Pumpkin Teeth
Pumpkin teeth come in a variety and of shapes and can be used for great puppet teeth. Cut off the sharp top piece, sand smooth, if desired, and glue in place.
Hot Glue For Teeth For really scary teeth, you can take a hot glue stick and cut it into small pieces.
- Put the pieces in a bowl of warm water and microwave it for a few seconds.
- Take the bowl out and carefully fish out the hot glues with a spoon and what you got is hot glue the soft enough to shape but not hot enough to burn.
- You simply pinch one end so it looks jagged.
- Paint with acrylic paint or nail polish
- Heat up your hot glue applicator melt the non-jagged edge and stick it right to your puppet. The effect is pretty awesome.
Another way to make teeth with hot glue is to make long drips with your hot glue gun, let harden and then trim and paint. This video will explain this process.