 Hi, I'm G.I.E. I am an artist and a teaching artist and a teaching artist means that I get to share some of my artwork with people like you. I like making art a lot of different ways. Sometimes I dance, sometimes I work with technology and one thing that I really love is working with paper. So today we are going to be exploring paper magic to make paper puppets like these. So the first thing that you want to do to make a paper puppet is come up with an idea of what your character might be. So I'm going to go ahead and put these away for a minute so that we can start brainstorming. You'll want a piece of paper, a blank piece of paper like this is great, but if you don't have blank paper, that's okay. You can also use notebook paper or even cut up a piece of a plastic bag or a paper bag. So for mine, I want to make I think an alligator. And so I'm going to start by just drawing the alligator normally. So I know that I want my alligator to have like a head with a nose, a tail. We're going to have a couple of legs. I think that I want my alligator to have more legs than normal alligators do. So this alligator is going to have three legs, but it's actually six legs. So this is my alligator and I just have it right now in just pencil because I know that this is just the first step. The next part is thinking about how to make it into a character with moving limbs. So now it's time to think about what the different parts are. So in some of our previous ones, we have a lot of different kinds of moving parts. This alligator is a little bit different. It even has a moving jaw. So I could do it that way and add something different or a moving tail. This one, the head is just one piece and I have my legs and my tail. So I think again with this one, I'm going to make one piece for the head, a piece for each of the three legs, a piece for the body and another piece for the tail. So I'm going to keep this out while I think about what the different parts are and get a second piece of paper. On my second piece of paper, I can start drawing out what these different parts are. So I'm going to start drawing just my alligator head and I'm leaving a little bit of extra room here because right here is where I'm going to fasten it to the body. And then I'm going to draw my alligator body right here and I'm going to draw my alligator tail right here. And I'm going to draw some of my alligator legs. It's kind of funky, huh? Seeing it in all these different parts. The next thing that you want to do is add all of your details. So this is where you would start coloring it. You can color it with colored pencils or with markers if you have them. One of my favorite ways to color is with paint. I have a few that I have already started working on. So I'm going to show you this one of a robot cat and another of an alligator that is already painted. So the next thing to do is to cut out your different pieces. So I'm going to cut out my tail. So I have my head, my body, my tail. And this alligator only has two legs. And now I have to think about how to attach them together. So I have all of my parts cut out and there's lots of ways to attach things. Sometimes people will use a hole puncher and brass fasteners, but it's totally okay if you don't have this as a tool. Other people will use wire or string or even twist ties. So I'm going to start with the one with the hole puncher. So with the hole puncher, I already made this hole, but what I did is I lined it up and punched straight through. And I did the same thing over here. And then I would line these two up and then put my brass fastener through. And sometimes I like to twist it back a little bit so that's a little bit tighter. Now I have a moving leg. For my next one, I want to do it a little bit differently. So for this one, I'm going to use a paper clip like this to make my hole. And this paper clip, I've just bent out a little bit and poked it right through the paper. So I have a little bitty hole right there. And then I am going to try to put this twist tie through that hole. This hole is pretty small, so we'll see if I'm able to do it. Okay, so I'm pushing it through. And with this one, I have this piece on top. And I think that for this one, I actually want the joint to be hidden, so I don't want this to show up on top. So what I'm going to do on this one instead is I am going to tape down right here where I want this to be. So that the tape is right where the joint should be, like this. And then I am going to bend this twist tie up, feed it through the hole that I made. And with this one, I can just sort of make this into a little spiral in the back, like this. And now I have a moving limb and it doesn't even have something on top like this. You can do the same thing with string by tying a knot in the back of it or with wire. So for this one, I am going to feed this through and I want this piece to be on top again. So I am making a hole with my paperclip again. I'm going to make my hole just a little bit bigger by poking just a couple more times because I know the string is going to be a little bit harder to feed through. With my string, I'm going to cut a small piece of it. And again, what I want to do is since this piece is on top, I am going to put it right here and tape it down. And then I am going to take my piece of string and thread it through this hole like this. And on the other side, what you would do is make either a big knot or you can tape this piece down again. You want to make sure that when you're taping it down, you're taping it down just a little bit away from the hole so that it's still able to move. So it looks like this in the back. And I have a tail that is able to move with my string through it. Another thing that you can use is wire. So you don't have to use wire like this if there are old appliances in your home and you have help from a grown-up. You can cut up the wires from those old appliances and take the plastic off of it and use those wires as well. This one is a pretty thick wire, but some people like to use a wire that's very, very thin because it helps keep everything really hidden. When I use my twist ties, this is lifted up a little bit from the paper. And I kind of like that look, but some people want it to be really flat. So again, with this one, I would use my paperclip to push a hole through the paper. This wire is a little bit thicker than my paperclip and this is going to be attached right here. I'm going to take my wire and tape it down. And then bend it up like this. And then push this wire through the hole that you just made like this. And again, I would make just a little twist in the back like this and alligator with moving limbs. So this is one way to make them. There's lots of different designs that you can try. Making a robot cat is pretty cool. And some ones that I've already made before are a different kind of extra big alligator that also has a moving jaw. This alligator is pretty similar to the one that we just made together. Or this one is a dragon with two moving legs and a moving head. This robot cat has so many joints. There's an extra joint right here for the elbows and for the knees and for the tail. Another dragon or a pumpkin with wings. I'm really excited to see what kinds of creations you come up with. Thank you so much for playing with me. I'm GIE and I'm an artist and I love working with paper.