After much deep and profound brain things inside my head, I have decided to give my own personal review on the books that I'm reading (if you want to know what I'm reading right now, look right over there -->). Okay, that said I am now going to announce what book I'm going to review today (drum roll please): The Children of Hurin!

Why do I choose to review this book over the others? Because it is most positively the best book on that list (besides the Bible, which doesn't really count, because no matter what book you're comparing it with, the Bible whoops it in the "Best Book" competition). Okay, question answered; onto the review.

The Review

"There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings, and the story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the West: lands where Treebeard once walked, but that were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World.

In that remote time Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband, the Hells of Iron, in the North; and the tragedy of Turin and his sister Nienor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband and the war waged by Morgoth against the lands and secret cities of the Elves.

Their brief and passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Hurin, the man who had dared to defy and to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire. Into this story of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, the Dark Lord and the Dragon enter in a direly articulate form. Sardonic and mocking, Glaurung manipulated the fates of Turin and Nienor by lies of diabolic cunning and guile, and the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled.” –The Children of Hurin, back flap.

This definition by Christopher Tolkien, third son of John Ronald Ruell Tolkien (a.k.a. J.R.R. Tolkien) hardly scratches the surface of this wonderful book. This book rates as one of the top ten in my list of books that I like and I give it, in a scale of one to ten, like a nine-and-a-half.

I won’t give away much, but I will say this: The Children of Hurin is one of those books that you love and hate at the same time. I will explain why. The hate comes from the fact that everything that could go wrong in Turin and Nienor’s (pronounced “Toorin” and “Ni-enor) lives, does, and worse, if that can be imagined. They get chased by a dragon, get lied to by their friends, get hypnotized so that they don’t remember a thing, have their love torn out of their life, and lots of other bad stuff. You seriously have to read the book to see what I mean.

For Tolkien lovers (you know, the people who have a bazillion pictures of everyone from LOTR all over their bedroom walls and LOTR trading cards taped next to their laptop touchpad), this book occurs before Sauron and the Ring were even heard of, in the First Age of Middle-Earth. You know that evil guy that is mentioned about once in LOTR? The guy named Morgoth? That’s the evil dark lord in this book, and I can tell, he has a lot of power.

The love for the book comes from the fact that it is so beautifully written and has a great story. You have to read it to get my point, because I’m not going to reveal any more stuff about the story. It’s just that good.

Well, that’s the end of that review. Here’s a link to buy The Children of Hurin.

Tenna ento lye omenta,

HRTF

Today my mom asked me to record some books on CD for my three little sisters. This is what I've decided to blog about, seeing as it is a space-filler and it is a very nice thing to do. So...

Step 1: Grab your materials-

What you're gonna need is this: a microphone that can hook up to your computer, a book, a recording system (if you are using a PC, go to START, click ALL PROGRAMS, then ACCESSORIES, then ENTERTAINMENT, and then SOUND RECORDER. Careful, sound recorder only records for a minute at a time!), and a little sign that hangs on your door knob that says this: PLEASE DON'T COME IN! RECORDING IN PROCESS. Okay, onto step 2.

Step 2: Rewriting the book-

Okay, so when you're recording and you get to the end of a page, you flip the page and the whole turning sound gets recorded. How nice. We don't need that. What you have to do is this: write the whole story on your computer's writing program (I use Microsoft Word). This may take some time, but don't worry, it will benefit you in the end. Done? Good; move onto the next step.

Step 3: Recording-

It's a good idea to record in 45 second segments if you are using the recorder that was mentioned in step 1 (if you don't remember what I'm talking about, go back and re-read the step), but record every bit of the book before moving onto the next step. It's a good idea to practice reading before you record so that you don't sound fake. Alright, next step here we come!

Step 4: Putting it together-

I used Windows Movie Maker to put my audiobook together, but you can use whatever you want. You can insert recordings of you introducing your audiobook, or music, sounds, or pictures (if you want it to be a movie instead). Just do it! When you're sure that you're through, save it to your harddrive. Okay now, next-o step-o.

Step 5: last step-

Now all you have to do is burn your CD. To do this (when using a PC), just insert a blank audio CD into your CD drive, open your audiobook on Windows Media Player, and hit "Burn Disk". That's all there is to it.

I hope you've enjoyed today's lesson in Careforyoursiblingsology. See yah!

Until we meet again,

HRTF

Postscript: "hurtf" is how you pronouce my blog name.

I know that a lot of us have younger brothers and/or sisters that obviously like what little kids like: fire-engines, princesses, cowboys, pirates (who doesn’t?), dinosaurs, baking mud pies, Spiderman, police officers, and a lot of other things. I also can make a pretty good guess at one more thing: a lot of us have some/more than average/an unmanageable ton of spare time on our hands this summer. Also, I know that (hopefully) all of us love above mentioned brothers and sisters and wouldn’t mind doing something nice for them. So, combining these three together in an equation, we get this:

Younger brothers and sisters Spare time + love for bros and sis’                                                 You do something for your little siblings this summer

 

Okay, sure, this post could be a “Wee Wuns”, but, as you notice, it isn’t and that is because of one small detail: “Wee Wuns” are things that you can do with your little sibs, while this post is something that you do for them. Got it? Okay, good, let’s move on.

What to do for them? What to do… this may be what’s going through your head right now. Well, I don’t know about you, but what I did was write a story. Now, that doesn’t have to be what you do; I mean, you could make them/he/she a paper airplane, or you could make them something to play with, or you could make them a water balloon and then soak them with it. But I chose to write a story, which is a good gift to new readers in your house (to see my post on writing a story/book, follow this link).

Also, as a bonus, I have included the story that I wrote in PDF form, in case you want to read it. The story, The Perfect Man, is actually book II of Arizona Fletch, my book, the first book of which you can read in the second PDF file.

The Perfect Man

Arizona Fletch, Book I: The Search for the Lost Allosaur

Okay, well, I hope that this helps fill up some of that spare time this summer.

Until we meet again,

HRTF

If you read the title of this post (inevitably you did), then you probably will have noticed that instead of "collections", I put down "coollections". What are coolections? Well, in this post you will learn the answer to that question. Also, to view the photos for this post, you'll need to go to my Photo Album. The folder you're looking for is called "Coolections and Clay" and throughout this post I have listed names for photos at certain points. To see the photo at that certain point, look for its name in the Photo Album. To begin, let me fill you in on part of what I did yesterday and last night.

My little brother loves turtles. I mean, he really loves turtles. And he has this whole collection of turtles, ranging from stuffed turtles to turtles made of shells, from live turtles to turtles whose heads wiggle around a lot, and from turtle books to turtle blankets. This kid has a LOT of turtles. The pictures for this part are titled: Coollections and Clay 1, Coollections and Clay 2, and Coollections and Clay 3.

Something else that you need to know is that my brother used to have a really boring room that didn't match him at all, as it was original designed for a girl. So, with this in mind, my mom, brother, and I bought stuff for his room that would match the kid: turtle books, a sign that says "TURTLE CROSSING", a turtle bed spread and pillow case, a shelf to hold his turtle collection, and one other thing: green, light green, and brown Sculpey clay. Why the Sculpey? Well, this is where the "and Clay" part of this post's title comes in. I made my brother a turtle lamp pullchain out of clay and put it on his fan. Very cool. The picture for this part of this post's title is: Coolections and Clay 4. 

Okay, so now you're probably wondering why I posted about my brother's turtle collection. Well, the reason is this: his collection is so cool. That's why I call it a "coollection": a collection that is cool. Why is his particular collection (or coollection) cool? Because of it's range. As I said before his collection has a huge array of items, from stuffed turtles to turtles made of shells, from live turtles to turtles whose heads wiggle around a lot, and from turtle books to turtle blankets. Very big variety = very cool collection = coollection.

The second reason I posted on this is the clay. Clay is fun. There are lots of things that you can do with clay. For instance, you can make scenes with clay, you can make games with clay (for an example, follow this link), you can make movies with clay (Wallace and Grommit is a good example of claymation), you can make ornaments with clay, you can even make lamp pullchain things with clay. All you need is enough packets of the right colors of clay (unless you plan to paint your creation, but who wants to do that when you can buy died clay?), instructions, and an oven if you are using Sculpey (please do; it's so much easier that way). Anyway, lots of choices of projects and colors = very good With All Your Might project = FUN.

Until we meet again,

HRTF

“We interrupt our regular program to bring you this special warning about the first day of next month. We will continue as normal after we’re through showing this Special April Fool’s Day edition. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Yes, that’s right folks: today we’re bringing you this special April Fool’s Day warning. As soon as it is possible, after Easter we will continue with The Art of Magic. So, without further ado, let us begin...

April Fool’s Day Warning

Most people are rather frightened of this day and dread its coming. Especially this year. Why? Because for those people who go to church, like me, we know that we are going to have to see a lot of people on Sunday and there are probably more than a few people willing to see you freak out, get dirty or messy, spill something down your shirt, or otherwise hurt or embarrass yourself. This day is their scapegoat, as they can do such awful or mean things to you without getting punished. It is also our time to do the exact same thing to them. Brace yourselves, this entry will both prepare you for how to get through Sunday alive and teach you some essentials on how to make sure other people, well, how does one put this sort of thing into words, make sure that your friends do not live a day past Sunday the same way again. Do you get my meaning? You need to make these people hurt, physically and emotionally. Embarrass them. Hurt them. Trick them. There is one rule though: don’t over-do it, okay? There are some people who will take this too hard. Go easy.

April Fool’s Day Defensive Training

• Check all cups. Someone might have slipped you a dribble cup, or, in other words, a cup with holes all around the brim so that you spill drink all down your shirt. Very funny, for them, although you can reverse the process by slipping them one   .
• If someone brings something exciting up suddenly, like maybe the fact that you’re going to Disneyland the next day, don’t believe them (believe me, I’ve had it happen thanks to my very loving mom. How nice. NOT! This is a good one to use on someone else, because, believe me, it hurts, a lot).
• Check all candy, gum, or other things given to you by your enemy. There may just be a snapper or fake spider ready to spring out at or hurt you, although that gum does look rather inconspicuous. OUCH!
• Be careful getting into bed at night. Someone may have snuck a comb or a couple strings of cooked spaghetti in there just to scare you more than you are already. Be on the lookout for people who might do these things and in turn, do it to them.
• Be cautious about what you eat. Food can be disguised very easily, which we will get into later. Just be sure that that peanut butter and jelly sandwich you’re eating really is just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Alright, now you are defensible against your enemies’ tricks. We must now make you offensive.

April Fool’s Day Offensive Training

• You already know what a dribble cup is, so use it and use it well. Make your enemies cry. Use grape juice or strawberry soda to get the best effect and surprise.
• Coat you’re the tips of your enemies’ pencils with white the night before. When the glue dries, the pencils will be impossible to use unless sharpened for a while.
• This idea was given to me by my friend and you should probably let your mom or dad or someone who drive in on the joke: go to the grocery store and get enough vanilla pudding to feed each of your family members or whoever you are having dinner with about a cup’s worth. Also grab candies such as Starburst, gum, Jelly Beans, Skittles, caramels, and others that look like veggies. Using your favorite pie crust, make chicken pot pies for your whole family, but instead of filling, use the vanilla pudding and instead of vegetables, cut up the candy to look like different veggies. Pop them in a slightly warm oven until dinner time and Voila! perfect little “chicken pot pies”!
• If your parents are heavy sleepers, sprinkle baby powder in their hair to make it look like they are going gray!
• Switch the clothing in your siblings drawers around so that they are not able to find a thing.
• Some other ideas are listed in the defensive training section, like spaghetti in your brother’s bed or a snapper gum stick.

There, you are; all set for April Fool’s Day. Now get out there and fool some people, soldier!

Until we meet again,

HRTF

The Art of Magic Introduction and a Few Tricks

A Brief History of Magic

Magic. When you hear that word, what do you think of? Trickery? Illusion? Playing cards? Houdini? Actually, magic is a mixture of all of these, and more. Magicians use trickery and slight of hand to fool their audience and illusion to perform “the impossible”. Houdini used magic to trick, confuse, and fool people.

Magic has been around for a long time, since the time of the Ancient Egyptians in fact. The first recorded magic performance is in an Egyptian scroll dated about 2600 B.C. It tells of an illusionist called Dedi entertaining the Pharaoh, Cheops. Or is it? The Bible tells us in the book of Exodus about how Aaron changed his staff into a snake. But then it says in chapter 7, verses 11 and 12, ‘But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; so the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For every man threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.’ Is what the Pharaoh’s magicians did magic? Possibly. Or is it the work of supernatural powers? Who knows? For right now let’s stick with the point: magic has been around for a long time. I mean, who doesn’t like to fool their friends every once in a while?

In Medieval Europe, magic was confused with witchcraft, which was punishable by death. But that problem was soon resolved when a man named Reginald Scot wrote a book called The Discoverie of Witchcraft. It showed how the slight of hand tricks preformed at that time were accomplished to prove that it was not the work of the Devil. Very helpful. Thank you Reginald.

After this period, more scientific tricks came into play: levitation, disappearing objects, transported beings, sawing people in half, and many more “feats”  started to pop up here and there more frequently. Near the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th, spectacular magic shows were being preformed across the globe. As this happened, people developed more and more tricks with more and more props. One American illusionist, Howard Thurston, needed ten railway cars to haul all of his equipment at one time!

During more modern times, though, magicians have stopped moving everywhere so often. They chose places like night clubs or TV channels to promote their talent. Advances in technology, such as lasers and holograms, may seem almost magical. Still simple tricks done by a magician before your eyes are as baffling today as they were in ancient times. That is unlikely to change and I for one, hope that it never does.

A Few Tricks to Start You Off

After that short history on magic, I present you with a few easy tricks to get you started on your magic career.

The Key Card: An Easy Card Trick

Here is a very easy to do card trick that may involve a little practice at first, but you’ll get the hang of it. All you need is a deck of cards and a victim (sorry, volunteer).

Procedure:

1. Shuffle the deck. You can even have your volunteer shuffle the deck, too.
2. Tap the deck on the table and as you do so, glance at the bottom card. Remember this card.
3. Fan the cards in front of your volunteer and ask them to chose one, but ‘not the bottom, because that’s too easy’. Ask them to memorize it and maybe even show it to the audience.
4. As they do this, cut the deck into two piles: Pile 1, which has the original top card on its top and Pile 2, which has the card that you memorized on its bottom. When they’re done, ask them to place the card that they chose face down on top of Pile 1. Now put Pile 2 on top of their card.
5. Now search through the deck until you find the card that you memorized. Their card will be to the right of that card. Pull it out with an air of mystery and watch your volunteer’s jaw drop.

The Disappearing Salt

This trick is a little harder, but after practicing, it gets easier. You will need a shaker of salt, a paper napkin, a table, and a volunteer.

Procedure:

1. Place the salt on the table and tell your volunteer that you will make it disappear. Begin by placing the napkin on the salt shaker, making sure that your audience cannot see the salt shaker.
2. Gripping the salt shaker firmly, bring it toward you (don’t slide it on the table) so that it is over the edge of the table, above your lap. Blow on the napkin, mystically. Put the salt shaker back down on the table.
3. Say ‘Voila!’ and yank the napkin off the salt shaker. The salt shaker will still be there. Apologize and perform steps 2-3 again twice more, however, on the second time, drop the salt shaker into your lap, making sure that the audience doesn’t see the drop. If you did it right, the napkin will retain the shape of the salt shaker.
4. Bring the salt shaker shaped napkin back down on the table and squash it from the top. To the audience it will look like you just squished the solid salt shaker into thin air.

These two tricks should help you get started on your magic adventure. If you practice them, you’ll get them perfect every time. I will be posting again on magic soon, so don’t worry, more tricks will be coming your way.

Until we meet again,

HRTF  

This post is on books: coming up with, writing, and editing books. The reason that I did this is that I do it all the time; i.e. Arizona Fletch. People tend to think that writing a book is some tedious, huge, really hard thing to do that can be avoided via the internet. But that is not writing a book (if that is what writing a book is to you, then you've gone down the wrong path). That, my friend, is writing a school paper (a completely different subject, I assure you). Writing a book is fun.

1: To Come Up with a Book

Coming up with a book is probably the easiest part of writing a whole book. In this first step, you simply take your ideas for writing a book that are in your head and get them down on paper or memorize them for future use. I've read in a book somewhere that some people like to carry a little book or notepad and pen around with them so that whenever an idea for a book comes to them, they can easily get it down on paper without trouble. You can use one of these. I don't really care. The most important thing to remember is this: whenever an idea for a book, either remember it or get it down on paper. It will make the next step so much easier.

2: To Write a Book

This step is rather simple. All you do is take your notes from the above step and "fill in the cracks" between them. What does this mean? I'll show you. Suppose one of your notepad pages lokked like this:

Boy gets captured by ghosts who live on clouds

Boy finds Dragon freind in ghosts' city

Dragon helps boy escape, but not before getting injected with poison

Dragon dies

Filling in the cracks of this story could eventually answer these questions and more: Who is this boy? Why do the ghosts capture him? What is the dragon's name? Where did the boy live? Can the dragon talk? So imagine it like this: to fill in the cracks of your notes/ideas is kind of like filling in the cracks of a broken vase with putty. Except you use words, not putty. That would be kind of weird.

3: To Edit a Book

My description of editing a book is this: easy, easy, easy! Basically what you're doing is changing things that you don't like in your story or that you think need more added to them. Don't get me wrong, when you first write your book, you read it, sit back, and say "Aaahh... I'm finally finished." But then later that night you might be lying in bed thinking and, using the story from the above step, you say to yourself, "Wow, you know what, I really think that the boy in my story should meet a girl during my story who he falls in love with, but then later she turns out to be one of the ghosts in disguise." Trust me, I've edited AF (Arizona Fletch) so many times that I can't count them. Seeing this, your story might never be truly finished. But that's okay. Even the best authors, after publishing their books think that one or another parts could have been better. It's just what happens to an author. I even do it with this blog of mine.

Well, I hope this post has informed you on book writing.

Until we meet again,

HRTF

Travel Projects #2: CD and Puzzle-Book

            OK, OK, I know that unless you have a laptop, printer, internet access, music Cds, and spare floppy disks in your car, that this may not seem like a travel project. But in a way it is: you can use it in your car.

           This travel project obviously needs to be made at home (unless you have the above items in your car, which is very unlikely unless either your parents are very nice [and very rich] or you yourself are a multi-millionaire [unlikely].) So, before your next extremely long, driving all day, strapped to a seat, nothing to do roadtrip, do this project (need a reason? Take a look at the following equation:

extremely long, driving all day, strapped to a seat, nothing to do roadtrip + CD and Puzzle-book = a fun, exciting , hand-clappin' , dancing , heck of a roadtrip [oh by the way, tell your parents to count this as your math for the rest of the week, since this little equation just saved them a lot of trouble on their next roadtrip and ensured a lot of peace on that roadtrip.])

            Okay, equations (and hopefully math for the rest of the week) done, let's move on to making a CD. Hopefully your dad (the same one that took away your math books [answered prayer ), knows how to do this, because its very hard to explain. The basic idea is you copy some songs off of a few CDs (let's use The Star Spangled Banner, Holy Holy Holy, and Hail to the Chief as examples), onto your computer, and then back on to an empty floppy disk. Now if you take that disk and stick it in your CD player, you can listen to songs from (example: three disks) on one disk! Cool huh?

Now, on to making a Puzzle-Book. In actuallity, this one is very simple, fun, and easy. All you do is the following:

1. Go to the Start button.

2. Click Programs.

3. Click Microsoft Word (or whatever other writing program that your computer has). 

4. Begin to make your activity book. Things you may want to include: Bible verses to memorise, coloring pictures, stories, a calendar (for overnight trips), crossword puzzles and other fun games (here's a link: Discovery Kids Puzzlemaker), a pocket for your CD.

5. Press Control+p. Select print (perhaps a book for each sibling [including yourself]).

6. Staple the book(s) together in the order that you want.

There you go! Now you have it, a CD and Puzzle-Book made in about half-an-hour with little to no mess! How about that?

Bye for now and have a good time on your next roadtrip,

HRTF

Travel Projects #1: Knitting 

I know that I'm a boy and that knitting is for crippled old grannies, but knitting is actually very interesting.  Some people (males in particular) never even try to knit in their entire lives!  Can you imagine that?  My brothers, for an example, criticize and tease me every time I try to knit (advise: for those of you male homeschoolers like me out there whose family include brothers who are at home all day with you and would do this do not atempt knitting until your male sibs are far, far away!  Believe me, news spreads fast; if they tell your dad, prepare to be tortured for the rest of your life.  Take it from the experienced, do not knit in this situation!).  Anyway, here are a few sweet knitting sites:

KnittingHelp.com has free videos to teach you to knit

Kidsknits.com free finger puppet pattern

You can also make a sweater for your favorite stuffed animal or doll using this free pattern

The reason that I put knitting as a "travel project" is that you can take it absolutely anywhere: in the car, on your bed, in the rain, with friends, in the bathroom  , anywhere!

Oh, here's a note: if you can't find any books or websites that help you learn how to knit, ask someone in your family if they know how to. If they don't ask your friends, church family, and others. Learn to knit somehow! 

Your Bro in Christ,

HRTF                                                                                  

The majority of craft books have back and front pages of cheap-o paper cut-outs which to make all you need to do is copy the page, glue one strip of paper, and press it to the other side of the paper, giving you a paper "basket" that isn't good for holding anything but half of a shelled peanut.  How very exciting. As I said in my first post (if you haven't seen it, my first post is titled Welcome to my blog! and is at the bottom of this page), the point of this blog is to show you some projects that will not waste your time, but help you to use it wisely.

Some paper cut-outs are actually pretty neat and look really good when they're done. I have few favorite websites that provide a lot of these in all categories. Here are some links:

Canon Papercrafts

Creative Papercrafts

Ben and Jerry's Papercrafts

These awesome sites have some sweet crafts like 3D paper dinosaurs, intricate iris crafts, and even an icecream shop! (Oh, here's a note from someone who has done these before: these projects can be very time consuming and even addictive. Make sure that you have enough time to do any of these before you start.

Your brother in Christ,

HRTF  

A marionette (mare-ee-un-et) is a puppet that you control with strings and a stick. You hold the stick with your arm level and wiggle the stick around in a special way so that the marionette moves around.

Last summer, I created two marionettes named Little Joe and Molly Sue. I entered them in our county fair and won a blue ribbon for them. 

Little Joe

Molly Sue

I have included the instructions for Little Joe and Molly Sue in this entry below:

Supplies

Two cardboard lemonade cans (the ones with the metal bottoms)

Two Six oz. Dixie cups

Construction paper

Yarn

Two paper clips

Papertowel tube

Hole punch

Scissors

Tape

Glue stick

Stapler

Instructions

Cut one of the cans in half and cut the other can's bottom off. Throw away the sections with the metel bottoms. Cover the half-can with yellow construction paper and draw a face on it. Glue construction paper hair to the top of the head. Cut out construction paper two ovals and fold in half. Glue one half of one ear to one side of the head and the other to the other side. Punch a hole above each ear, about a 1/4 of an inch from the top and punch a hole below each ear, this time about a 1/4 of an inch from the bottom. Set aside.

Cover the big lemonade can section with construction paper. This construction paper is going to be your puppet's clothing, so make it whatever color you want and as complicated as you want. Set aside.

Make two construction paper chains (about six links long each) and staple them to the sides of the body. Punch a hole above each chain, about a 1/4 of an inch from the top, and another hole beneath each chain about a 1/4 of an inch from the bottom.  Glue construction paper hands onto the ends of the chains. Punch a hole in the palm of each of the hands.

Punch a hole in the middle of the bottom of each of the Dixie cups. Cut two six inch pieces of yarn and tie a paperclip to the end of each string. Insert the ends of the strings that do not have paper clips attached through the top of the cups, coming out of the holes in the bottom. Tie the ends of the stings in the holes that are in the body and under the arms.

Cut two strings that are two inches long each and tie one end of each string in the holes that are above the arms. Then tie them to the holes that are under the ears. The head and body should now be connected and should be about 1/2 an inch away from each other. 

Make two strings that are three feet long and one string that is 3 1/2 feet long. Tie the three foot long strings in the holes in the hands and then to the ends of the papertowel tube. Thread the three and a half foot long string through the holes above the ears and tie a granny knot above the head. Cut one of the ends off at the granny knot and tie the other end to the middle of the papertowel tube. Your puppet is now complete. 

I have also found some other great websites showing you how to make a few different types of marionettes. You can make a penguin, a ballerina, and a sea turtle.

                                                              Your Brother in Christ,

                                                                                 HRTF