Can't wait to see some photos!

I helped my daughter make some finger puppets for school, and got some experience with the messy painful hot glue gun, as well as some hand sewing. I've discovered I ENJOY sewing. It was nothing fancy though.

Is it reasonable to try and hand sew a muppet style puppet? If so, what kind of stitch should I use (and if possible a link for how to do it, as I'm a TOTAL newb).

Thanks for any help!

Yes you can hand sew a hand in mouth puppet. In fact many people prefer to do it that way since they fell you get a cleaner seam.  Please note that hand stitching does take some practice to get a nice clean stitch.

In regards to the type of stitch there are about three different stitches you can use. Whip, ladder or baseball stitch.  You can see them detailed on the Project Puppets site. http://www.projectpuppet.com/servlet/Page?template=useful-stitches-tutorial

Also again courtesy of the Sewing and Craft Alliance here is a chart that shows some stitches. You may note that what Project Puppet calls a ladder stitch they call a slip stitch.
http://puppetsandstuff.com/2008gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=21984&g2_GALLERYSID=e6c9de4d6ae49e15395c3423a7261de2

Which of these stitches are you partial to?

Well I normally use a machine when sewing.   Whip stitch is my got to stitch when I am sewing with right sides together and want something fast and dirty.  When I need something clean from the front I normally go with the ladder stitch.

Cool, thanks!

Another very useful stitch to know when hand sewing is the Henson stitch. This stitch is especially useful when you're sewing to edges together but don't have easy access to the back or wrong side of the fabric. For example if you're sewing on facial features.

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https://youtu.be/pPM8h6kdNp0

I'll also share one of my tips for hot gluing. I have a relatively cheap pair of cotton gloves that I wear while hot gluing. Yes the gloves get all goobered up with hot glue but I have reduced hot glue burns to my hands by 99.9%! The .1% of the time is basically the very few times I choose for some reason to NOT put the gloves on. These are actually the gloves I'm using. http://www.amazon.com/14431L-DZ-Percent-Natural-Cotton-Gloves/dp/B0008ESVI6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1333037297&sr=8-3
There may be gloves better suited for the job but these were a pair that were given to me and I will always try to use what's laying about before actually going out and spending money on something new.

Thanks for posting the video that Daryl made. I keep forgetting he did that.   BTW: Ladder, slip and Henson stitch are pretty much the same thing. As you can see by the video you have to really keep the stitches small and clean.

BTW: Ladder, slip and Henson stitch are pretty much the same thing. As you can see by the video you have to really keep the stitches small and clean.

Yeah I kind of wondered if one of those you mentioned were the same as the Henson stitch. I was happy to provide the link to the video. I know it really helped me to better understand how to do that stitch!

I got really lucky with foam that there is an old upholstery place near me that normally only supplies to businesses.  Contacted them and informed them that I had been "commissioned" by some people to create puppets for use in entertaining at parties and so on.

The only provision was that somehow the business name was mentioned.  So I ask my puppets where they are from...  easy pitch and means I can get 2m x 2m of foam for under $50.