We celebrated the 5th birthday of a little friend over the weekend, and this was his gift.

I have had the idea of making hand puppets with Waldorf-doll-style heads for about 6 months. At the end of last summer, I even made several head prototypes and purchased some cotton velour for the bodies. But then, as is my wont, I let the project sit.

A few weeks ago, we had another little friend's birthday to attend, and I pulled out a puppet head and started trying to fashion a body and hat for it. That first hat just about did me in, and after throwing the puppet head and hat across the room on the night before the party, we settled for buying a gift on the way in the morning.

Not to be deterred, when this last birthday party came up, I pulled out the puppet and tried again. I was able to come up with a hat that worked pretty well, and the body is serviceable. The design will need some tweaking when I make another one, but I think that this weekend's birthday boy was pretty happy with it when all was said and done.

uncommon grace