Happy Halloween! Many people will have big plans for dressing up tonight, but have you ever considered getting a custom made puppet or soft toy that can be dressed up however you want? We make personalized puppets and cuddly toys based on a photograph of you or someone else, and you can request whatever fantasy version of yourself you can imagine!

Paul and his girlfriend recently ordered custom ‘mini me’ soft toys, and it was a fun challenge to make their tiny selves look exactly how they wanted. He wanted to be wearing a Lotus shirt from Formula 1 Racing and she wanted to be dressed in Hogwarts robes, from Harry Potter. This is the set of inspiration pictures he provided to base the dolls on.

I made the bodies and faces using my usual technique. It always takes a bit of experimenting with the size and placement of facial features to get the puppet or toy to resemble the person as much as possible. These are soft toys, so they’re fully stuffed with no puppet mechanism. They don’t move, but this style allows for a lot of creativity in dressing and decorating. It’s also possible to make ‘mini me’ hand puppets, with movable arms and heads.

I always try to find clothing to match the image that a client sends. In this case, I had to get child-sized branded garments, and cut them down to puppet size. It’s also possible to get fabric digitally printed with a custom image, so depending on whether you want an existing design or something from your imagination, the sky’s the limit!

Here are the finished mini mes! I had a lot of fun taking pictures of them in appropriate settings- did you know Leith has its very own castle?

Finally, here are Paul and his girlfriend with their custom likeness soft toys. Don’t they look adorable?

If you could have a puppet or stuffed toy version of yourself, would you want to look like a character from a book or movie? Show off your favourite band or sport? Or would you invent a completely unique persona? I’d love to hear you ideas and make them reality!

click here to find out more about Picture to Puppet’s custom puppets

click here to find out more about Picture to Puppet’s custom soft toys

or email www.picturetopuppet.co.uk