Hello everyone,

I came last year when I was trying to build a "Cookie Monster" lookalike for my Daughter's 2 year Birthday. I finished it during the transition of the website, and then life took its toll.
https://puppetsandstuff.com/archive/topic/9364
https://puppetsandstuff.com/archive/topic/9363

Aniway, it worked out better than I expected (I was basically learning how to sew on the go), and my daughter was thrilled.
The picture is not great, but it gives an idea of how it looks.



For the eyes I went with the Christmas ornaments, painted in white inside. 
To attach the pupils to the eyes I went to a local optician who kindly gave me two tiny glass frame screws. 

We played a lot with the puppet during the year, and she started to try more and more to manipulate it. This started to be a problem as:
- It's way too big for her
- The eyes are a bit too fragile for a toddler to play with

So, this year, for her third Birthday, I decided to use the remnants of fur I had too build her two small puppets that she could use.
The idea was to create puppets:
- looking more or less like Cookie Monster and Elmo
- that don't have any breakable part (basically making eyes out of fabric)
- built without potentially harmful chemicals (I'm looking at you rubber cement)



Elmo is a bit scruffy, and his nose and eyes are not centered, but she couldn't care less.

Now, there is a "technical" tip for my fellow puppet makers in this whole story. 
As I wrote earlier, I aimed not to use rubber cements. I do quite a bit of woodworking, and have been using animal glue pretty much exclusively since the day I discovered the stuff. And so far I have never found anything that can't be glued with hide glue (real hot hide glue, "liquid hide glue" I haven't used much).
I actually tried it on fabric when I built a train table last year, and had to glue some green felt on Masonite. Hide glue made a perfect and easy job of it, a nice initial tack, and a quick setting. Turned out it's actually the traditional way to glue baize on table (and I think felt on Pool tables too).

Anyway, for the mouth-plates I used some rubber gaskets, and glued some fleece inside and outside of it. The hide glue had a strong initial tack (pretty much like rubber cement), and was set and strong in about a minute. And all that without trying to give kill me with toxic fumes.