Just wanted to leave a message for Lizzie:
I've published my top 5 list of puppet sites...
http://www.schoolofpuppetry.com.au/tutorials.php/best-puppet-websites-of-2011

I apologise I have been so incredibly random with my appearances here of late. My computer breathed it's final breath and this close to Christmas, the procurement of another was a challenge. But all is once again well in the land of the Lair and I am excited to be reunited with my puppeteering friends! 

Na, I'm off to check your list out now. Really excited to see what you consider the top 5 given your depth of knowledge. I am still dead set keen on that book and apologise for the delay in my purchase. Now that I'm back online, let's make it happen!

I have only created one more puppet since I've been on here due to work commitments. What I've realised though is that my world has quite literally been taken over by puppets. They're everywhere! I have drawn up some designs for a stand which should help with the placements in my house, as right now, with the Lair creatures and puppets combined, I can hardly move. Despite this though, I intend to spend the Christmas break constructing a design that I am so damn excited about!

I would like to take this opportunity to say a mammoth thank you to each of you for your support, guidance and sheer patience with me over the past couple of months. I am so grateful for the things I can learn from you and the opportunity to get to know new and like minded people. If I don't get to speak with you prior, I hope each of you have a fabulously delicious and merry Christmas. I am headed to Canberra to celebrate this year so if there are any P&S members out there keen to hook up with a fellow puppet fan, let me know! 

Lizzie

Merry Christmas there. Have fun!

I apologise I have been so incredibly random with my appearances here of late. My computer breathed it's final breath and this close to Christmas, the procurement of another was a challenge. But all is once again well in the land of the Lair and I am excited to be reunited with my puppeteering friends!  

No need to apologise. This time of year is generally hectic

Na, I'm off to check your list out now. Really excited to see what you consider the top 5 given your depth of knowledge.

You give me *way* too much credit. Depth of my knowledge is a pretty shallow pool

Actually, I'm glad you came back about now, because this week it was announced that there'll be the 4th National Puppetry & Animatronics Summit in Melbourne in July next year. I went to the 2nd one way back in 2002, and it's worth attending if you're interested; in fact, I'd recommend going to that instead of the Maldon one (if you had to pick one due to finances). It's 'by puppeteers, for puppeteers', which means that it won't just be shows or kids workshops; but masterclasses, forums, keynote speakers, preview performances, etc. Plus they've got a 'special international guest' of which they haven't released a name.

When I went to the 2002 one, the international speaker was Ronnie Burkett (Canadian marionette performer), I did a workshop on making a cable-control eye (which I still have somewhere), sat in on several different forums, and listened to a lot of other speakers too. Actually, we had the people from Farscape, which was still running in Australia at the time, give a bit of a Q&A. There was also morning/afternoon tea, and an ending afternoon tea which had the biggest number of lamingtons in one room I've ever seen/eaten.

I'll probably be saving up my money to attend this instead of going to Maldon. The former - the summit in Melbourne - is explained at the link below
http://www.schoolofpuppetry.com.au/tutorials.php/puppetry-events-aamp-opportunities-dec-2011-jan-2012
But I noticed yesterday that the Maldon event now has ticket prices listed. There are prices per event, rather than one large registration fee. Most things looked like reasonable prices, $10-20 per event.

Anyway, I'm actually applying to present at the Melbourne summit, since it's far off enough that I can earn some dough in the meantime. Plus, I hope that I will have some new shadow puppets available to showcase. It should be lots of fun - pity it's not during the Melb. Fringe Fest. as it was in 2002, we topped up the day's workshops with a night-time viewing of good theatre.

I am still dead set keen on that book and apologise for the delay in my purchase. Now that I'm back online, let's make it happen!

Great! I'll send an invoice via Paypal; what happens is you'll get an email requesting a payment. Follow the instructions and you'll get taken to a page where you can enter your credit card info/mailing address. Submit it and it's done and I'll mail it to you asap.

I have only created one more puppet since I've been on here due to work commitments. What I've realised though is that my world has quite literally been taken over by puppets. They're everywhere! I have drawn up some designs for a stand which should help with the placements in my house, as right now, with the Lair creatures and puppets combined, I can hardly move. Despite this though, I intend to spend the Christmas break constructing a design that I am so damn excited about!

I know just how you feel. I just 'cleaned out' my workspace, which really meant I dumped all non-necessary stuff in my bedroom. I can barely walk in there without tripping over some puppet or something.
Somewhere hereabouts there is a good thread on storage which shows that most of us puppeteers have taken over a good section of the house for their stuff. Worth checking out and commiserating with!

I would like to take this opportunity to say a mammoth thank you to each of you for your support, guidance and sheer patience with me over the past couple of months. I am so grateful for the things I can learn from you and the opportunity to get to know new and like minded people. If I don't get to speak with you prior, I hope each of you have a fabulously delicious and merry Christmas. I am headed to Canberra to celebrate this year so if there are any P&S members out there keen to hook up with a fellow puppet fan, let me know!  

This goes double for me. I have had countless discussions over the years here and I never cease to be amazed; educated; enlightened; and encouraged. Many here have boosted my spirits when they were low. I do hope everyone has a safe, healthy and wonderful holiday!

... And now, I am off to make a shadow puppet. 

Quick note to other Aussies, spotlight (in Brisbane any way) has 40% off furs till Christmas Eve.

Rikka, thank you and same to you 

Steve, thanks for the heads up! The furs are definitely my favourite so I'll be checking that out for sure.

Na, totally lock me in for July! That sounds way more exciting than the Maldon gig. I've always been interested in animatronics although admittedly I know absolutely nothing about them. Would I be way out of my depth attending as an amateur? I hope your submission gets up. It would be great to see you get that opportunity to present!

I'm afraid I didn't get to check out your top 5 last night - sorry. I have added it to the list of pleasurable things I will be doing over the next few days to make Christmas slightly more bearable! Yay for avoidance! 

I will await your email. Can't wait to read that book. I hope it is all that people have claimed it to be. My expectations are rather high given all the comments I've read.

What's the new shadow puppet you're working on?

Thnk u!

Na, totally lock me in for July! That sounds way more exciting than the Maldon gig. I've always been interested in animatronics although admittedly I know absolutely nothing about them. Would I be way out of my depth attending as an amateur? I hope your submission gets up. It would be great to see you get that opportunity to present!

It would be totally fine to attend as an amateur - I went as part of a lucky group via uni, as a grant was provided from some old-hand puppeteers so that we could go. I'd never done puppetry before uni, so it was a really good opportunity to see what was going on as a beginner. Personally I'd like to support the Maldon event as well, because really we just need more festivals/events for puppetry; but I'm guessing the summit will be more 'organised' as they've done it a few times before.

I hope my submission gets accepted, but more than that, I hope I'll have the dough to actually do what I say in the proposal. I'm submitting two events: one is an intro to puppetry on the net (inclusive of a live workshop as an example of how we can do more online - a lot of the older gen. of puppeteers either don't want to or don't know how to use the net, I hope this would encourage more to get online). The second is an experimental presentation of my shadow puppets. I'm working on something a bit super-secret which should be cool, but might cost a lot to make.

Don't know if either will be accepted, even if the organisers are interested I'm betting there will be a lot of great applications.

-- Also, there wasn't much animatronics as I recall. Philip Millar did the cable-control eye workshop, and he is the designer for King Kong/Walking with Dinosaurs. Maybe he'll present something, which would be awesome. Other than that workshop and the Farscape  (sci-fi TV show) panel, I can't remember much else... But then, they had multiple events in the same time slots, so you had to pick and choose stuff. I only recall the stuff I went to.

I'm afraid I didn't get to check out your top 5 last night - sorry. I have added it to the list of pleasurable things I will be doing over the next few days to make Christmas slightly more bearable! Yay for avoidance!  

Don't worry about it - the reason I posted it at this time of year is so people could have reading material for the holidays. It's supposed to be something to chill out with

I will await your email. Can't wait to read that book. I hope it is all that people have claimed it to be. My expectations are rather high given all the comments I've read.

Email was sent a few minutes after I posted my previous message: do check your spam folders just in case. As for the book: it's something that grew on me. On first reading, it might seem confusing (although you're one up because you've already made puppets and understand the processes), but if you sit down and use it to work on a puppet it becomes clearer. There are few books though that go into detail on foam puppets, and this one stands out for me.

What's the new shadow puppet you're working on?

Well, I had received a shipment of plastic that I hope to use for my puppets. I haven't tested it out yet, and wanted to finalise my design in terms of number of articulations and size. But I haven't gotten anything done today...

The second part of the answer is linked to my above comments about 'super secret'. I've been developing an idea for a design that requires some custom plastic, and in making the above prototype I was hoping to work out how many pieces I can get out of one sheet of plastic; then I can obtain a quote for the plastic. I have to buy bulk and it is likely going to be out of my price range... but if I can afford it, I will be SO happy. I've wanted to work on this idea for months but never worked out how to do it. The last two days I've been attempting a design and finally cracked it yesterday.

... I wish I could say more... but this is one of those ideas where it's just so good you don't want to reveal it lest someone get there before you do. (Not that I think anyone here would steal it... more that I want to make it and showcase it and let it speak for itself)

Na! Help! So I think we can all recognise I'm a little challenged when it comes to technology... when I get to the 'send money' bit of paypal, am I entering your business email address or is the 'service@paypal.com' address linked to that specific invoice? Sorry for such a stupid question but it's all learning here! 

I hope you had a fabulous new year and year ahead sees your business thrive and your world at large generally rock. 

PM'd you. I have some personal info that I don't want phished. Just to clarify: how paypal works is that your email address that you login with acts as a username. When someone wants to pay you, or you want to pay someone else, you give them that email address so they can find and pay you/you can find and pay someone else. So if you send the money to a paypal address, you're basically paying their staff (I'm sure it would actually bounce if you emailed that paypal email you posted anyway) The email address just acts as a virtual PO box.

I had a good new year - hope you did too!