About Picture to Puppet
We’re a small independant business making unique custom puppets, bespoke toys and one-off sculptures. We make everything by hand in our workshop in Musselburgh, just outside Edinburgh in Scotland.
Our busy team of 4 designer-makers produces hundreds unique items a year, all by hand. Our clients are all over the world, and range from TV companies to theatres, from ventriloquists to corporations and from parents to Santa himself!
Meet the Dream Team
Here are the artisans behind our weird and wonderful creations!
Trissdan Thorne
Trissdan began working at Picture to Puppet after having previously worked in costume for theatre.
He mainly works on mascot costumes and giant soft sculptures, and can typically be found surrounded by big foam shapes and covered in faux fur.
Ruth Marin
Ruth joined the business in 2018 after studying cut and construction and working as a tailor. Her meticulous work always carries a touch of panache!
Mari Jones
Mari set up Picture to Puppet in 2012, after graduation in textiles from Edinburgh College of Art. 13 years on, there have still to be two days the same! She is grateful that the customers never cease to provide us with weird and wonderful commissions to keep things interesting.
Lady Chaos Wrigglebottom "Wriggles"
.Wriggles is our HR trainee.
You’ll often find her chasing scraps of fabric around or treating our fabric storage room like a climbing frame.
Nimbocumuless Cloud Nine Duchess of Musselburgh
Cloud is our HR manager.
The least hard working member of our team, Cloud gets by mainly on looks. Most of the time she can be found in anyone’s temporarily vacated seat looking far too comfortable to be disturbed.
Roisin McCallum
Roisin has been working as a puppet maker since graduating in animation from Dundee.
The Picture to Puppet Studio
Our crammed, chaotic colourful workshop can be found at 85 Millhill in Musselburgh.
We can generally be found under piles of foam blocks, colourful fabric, strange creatures and heaps of strange disembodied limbs. Our working lives are far from calm, but we are never bored!
The range of our customers’ creative ideas never ceases to amuse and amaze us. One day we’ll be making a series of likeness puppets for celebrities to appear on the TV, and the next day we’ll be bringing a five-year-old’s drawing to life as a cuddly toy, and fixing caterpillar truck attachments onto the feet! Requests such as “could you make my Mum come out of a Jack-in-the-box?” always make us smile! As well as lots of different types of puppets and toys, we also make lots of interesting props for the puppets, like swords, sheilds, wheelchairs and hockey sticks.
Sustainability
Sustainaibility is at the core of what we do.
Built to last
Everything we make is guaranteed for 5 years, so if it breaks within that, we will repair it free of charge. If it breaks after that, we’ll still repair it at our hourly rate.
Locally Handmade
Every single thing we make is handmade in our workshop outside Edinburgh. No sweatshops, no air miles, no mysterious supply chain.
Zero waste
We are committed to nothing going to waste. Any offcuts are either saved and used for future projects or donated to local projects. We also set up Leith Toy Hospital, our sister company that repairs over 1000 toys each year.
A peek behind the curtain
This video shows the process of making a likeness puppet from start to finish.
Video Courtesy of Rebecca Chan
Memberships
