Cork Project: Marionette

Do you save your wine bottle corks? When I heard they were going to start to use rubber or plastic corks, I started saving mine, much to the chagrin of my boyfriend who has to constantly keep my hoarding tendencies in check. So this next project takes me back to elementary school when we made wine cork marionettes! Project checklist:

Corks

String

Hot Glue

Ribbon or tape

Hobby Popsicle sticks

Hobby knife 

Beads small and large

First I will layout the body shape.

Get the hot glue ready!

I glued little pieces of wood and big round wooden beads for the hands and feet. Then I glued the ribbon the the back side of three corks to form the legs. Where the corks separate it creates a hinge. So the ribbon on the back of the legs would make a knee joint hinge.

Continue building the body. The ribbon is on the front of the arms so the hinge is like and elbow and bends toward you.

After attaching the head, I used small beads for the places string would attach: a bead on each knee, on the lower back, top of head, shoulders, and the big round beads already had holes for the string. Then I looked online to find a guide on how to string up your marionette. I found this one:

I used the Popsicle sticks to make the general shape and instead if cutting and drilling, just glued more small beads at all the the ends.  Then I strung him up close to this diagram. I put the head on one string for number 5 and the hands on number 2. While stringing I had it hanging to get the string the correct tautness.

Since this is my first marionette, there are some changes I would make: namely using matching ribbon or tape instead of blue on the cork. Ha! And bright yellow string: I am going to get a thinner string and hopefully in black so it's not so distracting. But all in all, cork guy is pretty  fun. I am impressed with puppet masters who really bring life into their puppets. It's quite the skill to master. Enjoy!

Update: I replaced the strings with fishing line. And painted the ribbon the same color as the cork and a little face on the head. I also added ears with little wooden beads and used them to string up the head. It turned out to be a boy doll, but. Maybe he'll wear dresses. Haha. Now to learn how to be a puppet master!