Jonny Cash to the Rescue

So I had to share this story that my friend Sarah sent along to me the other day. Sarah and I were in AmeriCorps together, back in the day, and she’s now living in Boulder, Colorado. She recently purchased one of my Johnny Cash finger puppets of her very own and had sent me a picture of him perched atop her snowboard:

Note the awesome sticker at the bottom of her board. She’d picked it up at a local restaurant a while back, but when she went back again to pick up more of them recently, she discovered that, much to her disappointment, they’d changed the design.  Sarah stewed for a while, but decided to harness her “Inner Cash” and not take this injustice sitting down. She sent me this protest picture, as she formulated her plan:

Finally, Sarah decided that Johnny must accompany her to the restaurnat and perhaps the owners would hear her protests and hook her up with some of the old stickers. And it worked! Sarah, and Johnny, are not the proud owners of a stack of old-school God Bless Johnny Cash stickers. Awesome!

It warms my heart to think that my little puppet could’ve been involved in this important quest for justice. Nice work, Sarah 😉

Custom Pet Puppets

I’m excited to announce that there’s a brand new listing for a custom pet finger puppet now up in my etsy shop! I’ve made a couple of these little custom dogs in the past and they’re just so much fun to do that I just had to give them their own listing. Imagine, little Mr. or Ms. Furryface in felt– all the adorableness you love, only the felt version can’t pee on the floor or chew up your favorite shoes!

A dog as part of a set for a friend to give as a wedding gift.

Bo Obama, the cutest first dog!

And, I’ll shamelessly include this puppet I made of my own pup, Weebay.

Ira goes to England

I simply had to share these photos that were sent my way by a customer who bought an Ira Glass a few months ago, just in time bring him along on a trans-Atlantic visit to jolly old England. It looks like Ira had an excellent trip– riding the train, hanging out with some livestock in Hampshire, visiting castles and, of course, having a pint at the pub. Brilliant!

Thanks to Gloria for sharing!

Felt Engagement

Rebecca contacted me through etsy a few months back about commissioning custom puppets of her and her fiance, Jacob, for use in their engagement photos. I sewed and sewed and revised and sewed to get the details and likenesses just right and above you can see the result that Rebecca sent along– ridiculously cute, right?! I love it!  (the photo is linked to their photographer’s website)

New Work

As promised, some of the new stuff I’ve been working on the last few days, Harry and the Gang and Bo Obama.

I’ll preface this by saying that I myself am not a huge Harry Potter fan. It’s not that I’m not a Harry Potter fan, I don’t hold some weird grudge against it like some people– I saw the first two movies and liked them a lot actually and I tried to read the first book but, well, it was written for a fourth grader and I’d already seen the movie, so I knew what happened. Needless to say, I got bored pretty quick. Anyway, I have many (many) friends who love the series and relished each new book release, so I’ve no hate in my heart for those Hogwarts kids.

Amy, my boss at the museum, asked me a while back if I’d be able to do Harry puppets. At the time I was smack in the middle of Renegade run-up madness and told her yes, but talk to me in a few months. I actually said something like “You’re going to have to remind me. Probably more than once. Because I forget.” and she did (more than once), and I finally got these done for her a couple weeks ago. (She was nice enough to let me borrow them back to take photos.)

(there was also a Hedwig the owl in this set, but she didn’t stand up very well on her tail  for photographic purposes)

The President’s Best Friend

I had a suggestion to make a Bo Obama from a buyer the other day and when I watched a video of him from his recent debut to the press, I was smitten. I’ve always been a sucker for dogs, but it’s gotten to a slightly ridiculous level– now that Weebay has joined us it’s like I’m a new mom boring the crap out of my friends talking endlessly about my “baby” and savoring all things “baby” related (except replace “baby” with “dog”) . Ben and I spend some evenings just watching funny dog videos on YouTube. Seriously. My two all-time favorites:

Anyway, back to Bo– He’s adorable, and looking like he’ll be a handful for them, but I’m glad the Obama girls finally got their wish. There’s nothing better than cleaning up potty-training accidents from the Oval Office carpet 🙂

I just finished another custom order, this time a wedding present for the buyer’s sister and (soon to be) brother-in-law getting married in May. The photos of the lot of them didn’t turn out very well, but I had to share this shot of the groom. I’m super happy with how this one turned out and feeling like my custom “portrait” work has come quite a long way since I first started with these for my friend’s wedding a few years ago.

P.S. All the photos taken in the new light tent are so yellow! Ick. I’ve been trying to photoshop correct them, but I can’t quite seem to get fix it completely and it’s driving me crazy!

Bright Lights

I go this lightbox set-up for Christmas this year and, although it took me a full three months to get around to actually setting it up, I’m finally enjoying trying it out recently. The lamps aren’t super powerful and I don’t think I’ve quite figured out the tripod yet (actually, its totally not the one in the picture… just noticed that) but the picture quality I got is quite a bit better. Observe:

Harold, of Harold and Maude, before:

And after:

Before I was taking photos on a piece of cardstock, and my light set-up really only allowed for shooting from directly above. Now I can set the puppets upright, which I think makes them look much more interesting. The color still needed quite a bit of tweaking (I think this photo is a little too green, actually), but it’s still quite an improvement.