joy

Puppets Can Bring Joy to the World

We have a new category for the blog! This new category is “Joy” and will have posts about how puppets can bring more joy into the world.

Up to this point most of our posts have been information about puppets, our puppet sewing patterns or our freebies. “Joy” will have stories, ideas and personal experiences that encompass other aspects of joy like hope, love, inspiration.

As I thought about joy and its associated aspects, I was reminded of the customers who write me telling me how much joy they experienced with making the puppet. They also told me how they used the puppet and how much joy the puppet brought to the person they gave the puppet to.

How Can a Puppet Be Used?

I got curious and researched the different ways puppets were being used in different settings. Here is a list of just a few of the many ways that puppets are used:
• professional entertainment
• story time
• kids using them to help them to read
• therapeutic purposes – to relieve emotional pain
• all types of educational uses for both kids and adults
• live theater
• role playing
• trauma recovery
• children’s shows
• church ministries
• just plain imaginative fun

As I read this list I began to think about the whole context of puppets and puppetry as being a ministry of its own. Not a ministry in the usual sense as in a religious ministry. But in the broader sense as being an instrument, means, or vehicle to bring joy into someone’s life. Because the end result hoped for by using a puppet was to bring an element of joy into someone’s life. If not full blown gales of laughter then at least some relief to the emotional pain someone is experiencing. This relief, which may be very slight, is equal to bringing in a tiny bit more joy.

Puppets Brought More Joy to My Family’s Life

Larry my Puppet Muse

That handsome fellow holding the chipmunk puppet is my late husband. He was the inspiration for this puppet pattern sewing business. We needed more humor in our lives after he had a couple of strokes. While watching the old Muppet Shows and movies, Laura (daughter and business partner) and I decided to make our own animal puppet patterns.

Larry Was My Puppet Muse

Larry was our quality control. If we showed him a puppet prototype and he’d give us a “what’s that?” look, we went back to the drawing board. If we came up with a puppet prototype that got a smile or a chuckle from him, we knew that we were on the right track. When we got a “that’s cute” verbally we knew we had a winner. All throughout the trial and error process of creating the puppets there was a lot of laughter in our family. Joy was beginning to erase the emotional pain that we all were experiencing.

In loving memory of Larry I dedicate this new category of “Joy”. Let there be more joy in all of our worlds. Even if that joy is expressed in a smile.