In this Instructable I am going to show you how I make my Puppet eyes. It has been over 6 years since I have actively made puppets, and have slowly started to come back into it. Back then I made a rough blog post on how I made them, and am revisiting the topic now in hopes to share my style to more puppet builders. These fit well with the "Project Puppet" patterns.

Step 1: Get the Basics (drawings, Materials, Tools, Etc)

First, you'll want a rough drawing of the style you will want. After that you'll need some:

Materials and tools:

Foamies Sheets (2mm thick) of various colors. Black and white are needed.
Felt Pieces for the eyelids
Misc. circular items to use as patterns (hole punch is a handy tool for the small white pieces)
Scissors, Xacto set, and a glue gun
(optional) "Hook and Loop" tape - for swappable eyes

Step 2: Make Patterns

If you plan to make more eyes in the future, it helps to make your "Base Patterns". Here I have both of my patterns against a ruler to show the diameters of each (your sizes may vary)

Step 3: Trace and Cut Out Pieces

2 eyes 2 pieces of each part. Trace, cut, and do your pre-build. Any mark you make in the foamies should become the bottom (glued part). When you place the iris, and whites over the black pieces, stagger them a bit to give a slight outline.

After you have it all layed out, cut the Iris pice and fit the pupil, and white reflections.

Step 4: Get to Gluing

Glue all of the pieces together.

Step 5: Felt Placement

Up until now, you just had glued together foam. With the added felt eyelids, you can get some "personality' for your character. Make it asymmetrical, turn them up, or down for happy/sad/worried/not smart.

Extra note: Before you glue the iris' on, move them slightly up, so you can add some felt for a bottom eyelid.

Each image shows my gluing procedure.

Step 6: Optional Step

If you want to keep the same puppet, but have him have different "mood eyes", you can glue the hook side of some Hook & Loop tape on the back.

I'm not sure how sturdy it would be, but you could either glue the other side to the puppet's face, or try to just "hook it" direct.