Master of Puppets: Staying Creative with Jean-Luc Cañas

(This article was written by Beth Marie Cantu Ensign and was featured in the March 2026 issue of Explore Harlingen Magazine.)

In a craft room lined with shelves and boxes, dozens of eyes stare back at Jean-Luc Cañas.

There’s a towering Winnie the Pooh standing 4-foot-2. A nearly seven-foot Sally Skellington who once startled him during late-night sewing sessions, a thrift-store Chewbacca, and perhaps the most beloved of all—a green frog with a familiar tilt of the head and a gentle, sing-song voice.

Photo courtesy of Jean-Luc Cañas.

Online, 213.8K followers and more than 3 million likes know him as Jeanlukulele. Locally, he’s just Jean-Luc; to his friends, Picard; to his students, Mr. Cañas—a teacher, theater creative, and puppet maker whose imagination brings characters to life in a way that recalls the inventiveness of Jim Henson, though entirely his own. And for Cañas, creativity wasn’t just a hobby, it was the family love language.

“It all started with my parents,” he says. His mother taught pre-K and kindergarten; his father was an elementary music teacher. Instead of handing him coloring books, they handed him blank paper. “If we didn’t know how to draw something, my mom wouldn’t draw it for us. She’d show us how to draw it so we could learn to make it ourselves.” That early lesson in creating for oneself shaped everything. “It really taught us to be more reliant on creating things ourselves.”

Cañas didn’t set out to become a puppet maker with a six-figure following. He began posting on TikTok during winter break in 2022, making kid-safe videos for his students and sharing music content. One simple 22-second clip changed everything: he cut notches into a straw, threaded a string through it, and made a tiny bending “finger.” By lunchtime that day, the video had over 30,000 views.

“That’s when I realized, okay, a lot of people want to see this,” he says.

That experiment quickly evolved into pool-noodle creations– Dr. Octopus arms, Iron Spider arms—and eventually full-scale theatrical builds. When he saw a larger-than-life Winnie the Pooh puppet from a stage production, he knew it was his next project. “I didn’t start at the very beginning with sock puppets,” he says. “I jumped deep into the end of the pool with a 4-foot-2 walking, talking, interactive Winnie the Pooh puppet.”

Momentum built quickly. During a production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Harlingen Community Theatre, he was cast as Audrey II and decided that if it was “technically” his costume, he might as well build it himself. He began documenting the process online, and suddenly, audiences weren’t just watching for his music—they were watching for puppetry.

Since then, Jean-Luc has continued creating puppets for theater productions, commissions, and special gifts for friends and family—once crafting puppets of a bride and groom who were close friends when he served as best man at their wedding.

Photo courtesy of Paola Mejia of PMP Photography.

Cañas’ creative process is deceptively simple. For commissioned pieces, he begins with reference images and builds outward from basic shapes. His thrifted creations, however, start without a blueprint. He wanders aisles searching for inspiration, collecting items that spark curiosity and improvises.

“I have no idea what it’s going to look like until it’s done,” he says. “That’s really the beauty of making these thrifted puppets. You just throw it all together and see what happens.”

The most magical part, he says, is bringing a puppet to life. Whether it’s a character from a musical or a fan-favorite like Kermit the Frog, seeing people respond as if the puppet is alive is unbeatable.

Photo courtesy of Jean-Luc Cañas.

In February, Cañas was invited to speak at the Georgia Thespian Conference, where he brought his thrift-made Kermit along for a musical segment. Packed snugly in his carry-on, Kermit performed alongside him, and the reaction was immediate: as he sang, the audience’s attention shifted entirely from him to the puppet.

“Nobody was looking at me. They were looking at this puppet,” he says. “It may not be the real one, but for that moment in time, it’s real. It’s Kermit.”

A lifelong fan of Jim Henson, Cañas channels that same inventiveness and heart into his puppets, breathing life into fabric, foam, and thrifted materials. For him, puppets are more than art—they’re companions. Most of his creations remain in his craft room, stacked on shelves or tucked into boxes, quietly watching him work. Commissions, he notes, are tough to part with– after spending so much time working on them, he grows attached and feels guilty sending the creations off to their new homes. “But they will be loved, I know that,” he says.

Photo courtesy of Jean-Luc Cañas.

Though his TikTok posting schedule has slowed due to theater and teaching commitments, the ideas haven’t stopped. There are thrift hauls waiting to become “Franken-puppets,” commissions, collaborations, and more characters still waiting in the wings.

For Jean-Luc Cañas, puppetry isn’t just craft—it’s connection. It’s the moment when a room full of adults forgets the person holding the puppet and instead locks eyes with a frog. It’s turning discarded fabric into something that sings. In a world that often feels disposable, he’s proving that with enough imagination, nothing really is.

Through it all, his guiding philosophy is simple: creativity is for everyone. “As long as you’re willing to work and be creative, you can make anything out of anything,” he says. “Don’t focus on what you don’t have. Focus on what you have and how you can make that into what you need.”

Budget constraints? Use them as fuel. Missing materials? Improvise. And as always, don’t forget to stay creative.

Find Jean-Luc as Jeanlukulele on TikTok and Etsy.