Not really an update, but the program for the summit has been fully released and I have an itinerary on my blog:
http://www.puppetsinmelbourne.com.au/blog.php/2012/06/05/national-puppetry-summit-itinerary

I will be 'liveblogging' the event, like previous festivals I've been to. This means workshop notes, show reviews, etc. will be shared.
There's a couple of really well-known people I'll be getting to meet/see, including Andrew from Puppetvision.

Na, it was the first one that he made.  Lots of fun and it turned out cute.  It seems so long ago!

I will be 'liveblogging' the event, like previous festivals I've been to. This means workshop notes, show reviews, etc. will be shared.
There's a couple of really well-known people I'll be getting to meet/see, including Andrew from Puppetvision.

This will be fun to follow and to get to meet Andrew will be such a treat!

Na, it was the first one that he made.  Lots of fun and it turned out cute.  It seems so long ago!

This will be fun to follow and to get to meet Andrew will be such a treat!

Yeah it's been a while since I even looked at that pattern. - Glad you liked it!

... The summit is going to be great. Especially meeting all these wonderful internationals!

So today I happened to meet up with someone who is doing shadow puppetry and is new to the whole thing. We had a long chat about puppets, etc, and she's going to the summit as well so it was a great meeting-of-the-minds.

As it happens I was planning on making my trip out to this new arts supply store afterwards, mentioned that I was doing so, and we ended up going together.

Boy, we had a lot of fun. The place is a medium-sized shed (bigger than your garden variety that's for sure) filled to the brim of various offcuts of... well, practically everything. There were aisles of various quantities, sizes and shapes of: dowel, foam core, poster board, folders, papers, rolls of vinyl and papers, fur and material scraps, cardboard boxes and tubes, 'bits and pieces' (beads, fake phones, bottle heads, etc), bottles, foam block (polystyrene and polyfoam), paints, twine, magnet sheets, rubber, photo frames, .... you name it they had it. I even found offcuts of the exact same plastic sheeting that I've been ordering from the manufacturer (sadly not in any size I could use, but still).

I didn't have a camera, but you all would have loved it.

Here's what I ended up buying:
- one long cardboard tube
- one long rectangular piece of polystyrene foam
- one large cardboard box
- 2 rubber wheel chocks (http://www.clarkrubber.com.au/wheel-chocks.html), which I'll use as sandbags/stands
- one large 'photo album' cover thing. This is like, the size of an A0 piece of paper, but imagine a photo album cover - two thick boards hinged together which make it perfect for standing up on a table. I'm going to turn it into a table-top shadow puppet screen
- 2 rolls of white elastic, probably a couple of yards in total

How much?

For all this, and I got the box for free.... $7.

The place has this thing where you grab a plastic bag or one of their recycled paper bags from shops - you fill it, and if you do it will cost you $30. Anything larger, or the bag is not full, they calculate on checkout. There were no price tags anywhere. The only signs were about only taking a certain amount of the rarer items in the shop. And when I checked out, the woman took a very quick overview and just went "oh I'll charge you $7". I would have bought more stuff, but I really only wanted to get what I needed, rather than what I wanted. My new friend also bought some things, so we both came away happy and swearing we'll be stopping by again (and again )

This is the place: http://www.reversearttruck.com.au
The website sucks, but the shop itself is awesome. And the people were very friendly.  

... This relates to my super secret project because I've been thinking I need to redesign the way I'm building my screen/frame to make it easier to transport and set up. The cardboard tubing will be for me exploding specks idea, the box for my screen, the foam for standing my puppet whilst I do something else. The elastic, album cover thing, and the chocks, will be for if I get to do some market stall selling.

Sigh, I think I'm in love with this shop  

Oh, this sounds right up my alley!  I would love to go to a place like this!

Yeah it was pretty awesome. They also do pick-ups of stuff, so if you're a school or something and you have scraps, they come pick up whatever you've got. They were unloading stuff when we were there: I saw a big thick wooden worktable that I would have loved to have... It was kind of like being in a jungle scrap heap

I'm just in the middle of turning my box into a small shadow puppet theatre/screen and it's definitely worth the $0 I spent on it

I should have some pics/video for you all tomorrow. I'm just putting some 'final' touches on my screen/box before moving to the all important part of making the puppets. Currently I'm just waiting for paint to dry...

I've been trying for a whole week to get a material for my performance, and various issues keep cropping up where I have to go back and forth with the supplier. I have about 6 aerosol paint cans, none of which work, or work half the time. I've bought supplies to try and make the puppets when it turns out I probably will get away with printing designs onto paper and then using a glue stick to attach it to thin card. And every time I want to build something there is a fight to do it in 5 celsius weather because that's the only time when I can use my work space uninterrupted.

.... Sigh... I really think the universe is trying to tell me I shouldn't bother.

You know building stuff used to be fun, now I'm just pissed off and tired.

Tomorrow things will look better.   When you mentioned 5 Celsius it brought back the fact that you are in your winter season unlike us here above the equator.  Seems so strange.

Yes, winter. Sadly. I wouldn't mind, but as my room has very little insulation it gets extremely cold even with a warm blanket. Then you spend a few hours painting in the backyard at 3am ... well, it doesn't help.

I enjoy the cold rather than the heat, but this is just free-zing!