Depends what kind of hand puppet you want to make. I'm a professional puppet-maker and I might be able to give you some advice, but first I'd need to know a lot more about what you want to achieve. The term "hand puppet" covers dozens of technologies; what do you need them to do? How big do they need to be? How many operators per puppet? Do you want one- or two-handed operation? What kind of materials are you happy working with? And that's just for starters............