Good Day everybody.  I've poked around the forum a little bit and all I can say is WOW!   Fantastic puppets being displayed, great info being shared and so much to read and learn from.  My name is Adam and I'm a new puppet builder.  In hopes of getting my children and other children in our church a little more engaged and excited I have taken on the challenge of a Puppet Ministry.  I'm very encouraged by my first couple attempts and my kids love their puppets.  Story time before bed is awesome.  I've just purchased the pattern for the Roly Puppet in hopes that I will be able to build puppets a bit quicker and with  more consistency to form a 'troop' that the church kids can use and enjoy.  Thanks for providing such a great  place to share. 

You have found a good place for puppet ideas.  Are you focused on ministry to the puppeteers or the audience?  Will kids be the puppeteers?  If so those kids and teens grow so fast.  I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out how to get their height adjusted.  Flexible way to adjust either the stage or the puppeteers are good to have on hand.  Interestingly I found that some of the shy kids bloomed behind the stage and found their voice to perform for the first time.  What is your target audience age range? Best wishes for you as you begin this exciting adventure. Let us know how we can help.

Thanks for the encouraging words. My hope is that the 9-12 yr olds we have right now will take a bit of ownership with the puppet idea. Give them something to be creative and participate. Already one of the very shy girls spoke up when one of the puppets was presented and said that she would be willing to both operate and speak with the puppet. I was floored. She is very quiet and her parents just split up so this is very good for her. My children are extremely excited and our bedtime stories are so much fun. My wife and I are building a collapsible stage from pvc pipe. Small church and limited space. Hoping it will be two tiered so that we can have some kids working puppets along with adults. I guess you could say our target is the whole congregation in the message that we present but a more focused group would be the kid puppeteers themselves. Hopefully by working together to create scripts and find fun music they will grow closer together in their friendships. Be sure that I will be asking a bunch of questions and posting pics as time rolls along.

Welcome to the madness Adam! Sounds like you have a pretty good plan in place for moving forward.

Keep them guessing by building your excitement so that the best of your show is the last.  When puppeteers get to have some input in the creative choices they will take more ownership and work harder.  For beginners it was hard for me to tell them what they were doing wrong without hurting their feelings.  If you take a video of the practice and let them see how they look then they will ask how can I do it better.  Kids get sick more often than adults so we had an adult ready who could take their place so the show could go on.  We told them that if something went wrong to just pretend that it was planned and keep going.  Once an eye popped off and a little boy picked it up and tried to hand it to the puppet, puppet said thank you, grabbed the eye with his mouth, ducked down and stuck the eye on with some tape and kept going.  We had an emergency kit for quick fixes on the ready. It is lots of work but worth every minute.

I like that.  A quick an honest reaction to an eye falling off.  Bet the audience thought that was great.  My wife and I had some fun doing touchups on our first couple puppets.  Yarn for girls hair is fun and easy but we made some mistakes.  A little hot glue and a sharpie and wow what a difference.  Oh and changed out flat felt eyes for ping pong balls.  My girls are going to wake up and see that change this morning.  What a difference, really adds a new dimension (guess it should seeing as a ping pong ball is a 3D object compared to flat felt). 
I have a quick question on eyes that I'm sure I'll find in the search field but here it is.  Pupil placement, where should the focus be?  Slightly down and in as if looking at ones hand or more distant like looking at the back wall of the church? 

Well I am sure  you can find "rules" on pupil placement but I feel it all depends on the puppet itself.  A shy puppet is going to look down at it's hands or feet a confident or overbearing puppet may look right out at the audience. You can use those stick on felt circles to get an idea of where you want it and then either paint them on or continue to use the felt circles.

Getting there. Need to stuff and sew arms. Add facial features and hair. Feeling pretty good about this new hobby and craft. So much to learn, so much fun to be had. Already see improvement from the first couple attempts.

Looks good and happy so far.  Take into account if your audience will be downhill, uphill or on the same level as your puppets.  We usually had kids group sitting on floor close to the stage so we tended to look down more.  Angle also will effect how much of your puppet they will see or if they will see unintended arms. A wider stage with a ledge to set objects will put you farther back and so you have to put puppet up higher. A stage that juts out into the audience can leave the backside of puppet stage visible. There is  no better way for you to judge the best eye placement and puppet height than to sit where your audience will to see how it looks. Be safe, take Shawn's excellent advice to have the moveable pupil test, it will save you from a hard fix if you get placement wrong. No one will notice a beautiful puppet if they are detracted by the strange pupil placement, it is soooo important.

Jackson. I think that he just may need to apply for youth pastor at our church. My son (5yrs old) loves him and named him. He is technically our 4th puppet but the first with proper body and arms. Now I can go back to first three and finish them. Then start making more.  Church kids getting excited about the new group.