Last week, after a brief internet research on readymade hand puppets, which provided me with some adorable but rather costly choices, I decided to resort to a well-known, chain  toy-store, where I anticipated to find what I was looking for at a reasonable, not to say, thrifty price.

To my dismay, I only spotted some classic, fairy-tale puppets of plastic heads and cloth dresses, which did not satisfy my standards.

As I was wandering around, already making crafting plans in my mind, I caught sight of a container full of fury like, door air stoppers bearing an animal head and two paws. I immediately fell in love with the tiger! The rest of the story you can see below. It was so easy to transform it into a puppet tiger, which every student at school loved! 

 

Stage 1

my cute door air stopper intact

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                        Stage 2

♦Cut the body at a convenient length

♦Empty the stuffing from body but       leave enough in  head and paws

 

 

 

                         

     Stage 3

♦Turn the end points 1-2 cm inside

♦Use some seaming adhesive to iron-paste them together

and

proudly

finally

 

Stage 4

The puppet is ready!

Isn’t our Jae (his name) cute?

I am so excited with Jae! What’s even more exciting though, is the fact that there is actually a real Jae in London Zoo! I discovered this, while searching for a convincing reason why Jae is only speaking English.

Well, our Jae regularly visits us from London Zoo and this gave us the chance to watch relevant videos, which you can see below, and tells us his own and other endangered tigers stories and sings and plays with us. The first day I introduced him in class I wish I could have photographed those happy, shiny faces and all the hugging and teasing that came along!