Here's our booth at the Big Bodacious Christmas Boutique in December:

And here's Susan hanging out with her marionettes

What do you think of our booth? I have to admit, I'm completely in love with it. We have a puppet show stage built right in so when kids come by and want to play, they can jump behind the curtain and entertain the crowds. It's so much fun! I also love our marionette display. It's just a couple of 1x2's and some double sided velcro and it works great! It's easy for anyone who stops by to take the marionettes down for a walk. We've tried to make our booth interactive and fun for everyone :)

In case you're interested in the building of craft show displays, here's how we put ours together: we designed and built the stage/shelving unit and the marionette display ourselves, we made the curtains (the red curtains you see were not part of our booth) from some fabulous discounted fabric and thrift store sheets (bleached back to white), the trunks were a lucky Craigslist find, I got the puppet tree display at a furniture and fixture sale at a closing Borders store, and the free standing wall units (the silver poles holding the marionettes and curtains up) were at a furniture and fixture sale in a office supply store that was moving. If you're looking for display stuff, those closing store sales are the way to go, let me tell you! It probably saved us hundreds of dollars and tons of time trying to build things ourselves. If you want more details on how we built our stage/shelving unit, let me know! I'd be glad to share.

We're looking forward to trying out a few more craft shows this year. I'll keep you posted on where we'll be and when just in case you're in the neighborhood and want to come play with some puppets.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Sarah

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've been able to get anything up on the blog, so I have a bit of news to catch up on. First of all, we are officially signed up for a Christmas boutique! We had such a blast at our summer shows that we just couldn't pass up this opportunity. If you're in town on December 14th or 15th, you should stop by! We'd love to see you! Plus, we'll have some goodies in our booth that we don't sell online :)

Speaking of goodies not available online (yet), I've been playing with more caterpillars! 
Here are a few of my favorites:

I've also been playing with t-shirt designs. I looked into getting a few shirts professionally screen printed, but the non-bulk cost is just not an option for me. So, I decided to try to find a good DIY method. My sister showed me this screen printing method using Mod Podge and embroidery hoops and it totally works! I created a few different screens so I could try a couple of different t-shirt designs and here are the results:

I love them! They're far from perfect, but that makes me love them even more! And now that I have the screens, I can create as many shirts in as many colors as I like :) I still haven't decided if I will make them available in my shop yet. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I'm not so sure I want people looking too closely at these. My sister and I will be wearing them as our "uniform" while we're running our booth at the Christmas boutique, so maybe if people show interest in them there I will put them online.

 In the meantime,

Lastly, I just want to share a couple of custom orders I sent out over the last week or so.

They turned into such fun characters!

Well, I guess that's about it for now. The next few weeks of boutique prep will be pretty busy, but I'll try to keep posting and coming up with more puppety goodness to share. Oh, and just as a heads up, we'll be having a Thanksgiving sale starting next week and running through Thanksgiving, so keep an eye out for the coupon code. 

Have a great week everyone! And for my fellow Americans, make sure you get out and vote today!

-Sarah

Wow, wow, wow! Who ever thought this little business would grow to have 300 fans? Certainly not me. I'm completely thrilled. Thank you to everyone who has helped us get here! It's one of the best feelings in the world to know that people appreciate my work. In honor of these 300 amazing people who have shown support and facebook love for On Hand By Hand, we are having a giveaway! I haven't decided yet what the prize will be, but I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, head over to our facebook page to enter the giveaway. You know it will be awesome. 

-Sarah

UPDATE: The prize will be a custom made baby monster puppet designed by the winner! How exciting is that?!

So, I've been debating whether or not to sell these guys online. They've done quite well at craft shows, but it's hard to show the movement and how extremely awesome they are with only a few pictures. They really are a lot of fun. I find them completely charming, especially crawling up someone's arm. Anyway, I think I've finally decided to try out the online market to see what happens. I'll be listing them exclusively on this website soon. This will help me fulfill three purposes; 1) to see if anyone's interested in buying caterpillar puppets online, 2) to test the onsite shop feature, 3) to use up the bits of scrap fur I have lying around. Sweet! I'm excited. You should be too. 

Well, we've finally got the website going! What do you think? Needs some work, right? That's ok. Like everything else in life, I'm figuring it out as I go. I'm hoping that this website will become a go-to spot for our fans to find out news, see sneak peaks of new puppets, get ideas for different ways to implement puppetry into teaching, playing, and interacting with children, and basically get to know the masterminds (heh) behind this thing. I also want this to be a place where you can ask questions, discuss puppets (see Community page), and get to know one another. I love sharing ideas and getting to know people who share my interests. And I love the creative world of puppets. Let the puppet rumpus begin!