Converting a second hand corpse prop into a puppet

I was given a prop a few years ago that I recently rediscovered. It was a tombstone with a corpse inside that was supposed to be able to pop out. The friend who gave it to me said they could never get it to work right. I took it apart and looked it all over, and decided the corpse & tombstones would be good to do something else with.

You can see them here, & I'll be adding my in progress photos to that link later.

The corpse (which is basically just some hands attached to a wire structure & then a separate head) is going to be a puppet. I'm going to repainted the face/hands, possibly give it ping pong balls, & otherwise alter it to make it a little bit more friendly looking. Then I am going to trawl the local thrift shops for a suitable top. I was thinking a nice 'dad' sweater vest & button up shirt, but then I painted the nails sparkly green, so I could go a glam route. I think I'll just have to look around & see what I find.

For the tombstone, I'm either going to convert it into a mini puppet stage, or a light fixture/light hiding spot. The front looks like a regular grave, so it'd be easy to keep things out of view behind it.