Don't forget to add it to your Profile here at Puppets and Stuff.  You can enter it under the Website section.

You can also use a sharp kitchen knife. Foam does dull pretty much anything you use pretty fast. With a knife if you have a sharpener you can keep it sharpened. Razor blades are good like anglered4kids mentioned and you can get a whole box of them for pretty cheap. Check your hobby store. Look for the ones that are exposed on just one side that have the other side covered in a bit of metal that acts kind of like a handle of sorts.

Andrews price calculator is really designed for someone who is doing this full time as a business. Really to simplify it down you could say that you would calculate your materials then add that to a calculation of your hours times hourly wage then on top of that add 10% as a bumper.  Let's go ahead and look at your specific situation.

Materials: $80.00 (you always choose the most the materials would cost you)
Labor: 8 hours x $20.00 =  $160.00
10% of Labor:  $16.00 (You don't calculate the 10% on materials. Only on labor or fixed expenses.)
Total: $256.00

Fixed expenses would be if you have things like rent and utilities that you have to keep paid in order to your business open. Some work out of their home so you could calculate those in but often people do not. Marketing can often come into play if you are working out of your home though.  If you have a web site that promotes your puppet sales you would want to calculate that in.

One thing to remember is that if you are going to sell through eBay you have to take into consideration the fee they are going to charge you to sell that puppet. You would need to add more to the total to cover that. The 10% can cover for some of that but not all.

Don't forget you are going to have shipping cost also.

Why are the arms so hard?  They are nothing more then two pieces of fabric sewn together then turned and stuffed.  The same thing as on your avatar puppet.

I think your price is pretty good.  I do think like Kanja that $8.00 is a bit too low to add legs. How many hours well it take you to add legs to the puppet?  How much are you paying yourself per hour? In my opinion there is a big difference between offered and custom.  If you make up a bunch of this style of puppets you can do it more efficiently and thus perhaps charge a bit less for them thus increasing your chance of selling them. If you have to go back and customize that puppet or for that fact build something to a clients needs it takes more time then when you "mass" produce something.

P.S.
It is fine if you promote your sale of puppet here.  In fact there is actually an eBay button that lets you embed your auction. Click the button then paste the Item Number for your auction between the ebay tags that where added when you clicked on the button. It shows up like this!
330455981859

Very cool stuff!

I tend to agree with you Michael that there seems to be a lot more puppets showing up in TV.  I've noticed several commercials with them of late. 

That was great!  I went ahead and embedded the video.

Yep you are right this has been discussed at length in the past. If I was really mean I would make you search them out.

1.  A variety of techniques depending on the puppet.  Most I paint a wood ball.
2. Yes to both. (see 1)
3. Yes to both. (see 1)
4.  Stitch or glue depending on the eye.  Some of the pre-made eyes actually have post you can insert through a hole with an attachment you add to the back to hold them in.  You can get those at hobby and craft stores.
5.  Again depends on what you want.  There are many who really like the felt pads because they can apply them once the puppet is finished and eyeball attached.

 

Congratulations!