Day #1: Going Bananas or Worst Puppet Ever!

It's my birthday, and I am celebrating with an edible puppet that, in many ways, truly encapsulates this 365 Project. I must be bananas to do this project. After all, I am busy, over-committed, I homeschool my girls (with help from my amazing husband), and run my own company. So I know that I really need to do this. Need to reconnect with my own creativity and my favorite medium: puppetry. So, yes, I am totally bananas!

Banana Octopus Puppet

This puppet is part of my "Play With Your Food" category of puppets. I took a banana, peeled it carefully, and used slices of it to make the suckers. I should give credit where credit is due; it was my older daughter who came up with the idea to use the slices as suckers. I stuck them on with peanut butter "glue" and then used banana slices with chocolate chips for the eyeballs...Mmmmmm....Bananas, chocolate, and peanut butter! After all, it is my birthday -- so I have a great treat to enjoy in a few minutes. And though I am sharing this post, I will not be sharing the treat!

My alternate title for this is "Worst Puppet Ever," which requires some explaining.

A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop with the Richmond Comedy Coalition. It was great and lots of fun! It's been a while since I've done improv, but I find it's a great way to get the creative juices flowing and be creative with a group.

At the RCC workshop, one of the warm-up games we did was called "Worst Improv EVER!" Creative work is very personal. Oftentimes, when you do something creative or performance related, there's a tendency to be concerned about doing a bad job.  That your scene (or show or jewelry or book or whatever) will be awful, that everyone will hate it, that you will be mortified with embarrassment.

The point of the game is to get that fear out of your system. It's important to remember that before you can become good at something, you need a period of allowing yourself to make mistakes and mess up. For the game, everyone lines up, does a short scene of a random nature, and then the other workshop participants shout out in unison: WORST IMPROV EVER!

So, I will say, "Worst Puppet Ever." This gets it out of my system.

Detail: Peanut butter as glue!