Hello! Clyde

I have been crafting. Now is the time for everyone to break out the maracas and say a little "Ole!" After the whole Easter wreath and pain episode, I wasn't sure I wanted back in that dungeon of torture. But the mind forgets, fingers heal and so back in I went.

I have been doing banners, which I am not going to show you today because they are still in the boring stage. But instead I am going to show you my lovely rooster, Clyde. I have no idea what his true name is, I call him Clyde Morningstar II. He looks like a Clyde and with his haughty stance, I'm pretty sure he is from royalty chicken stock, hence the II.
He started in very humble beginnings in the aisle in Goodwill that they put the "Who in the hell knows what this is and where it might go" section. He was laying among the giant lot of toilet bowl cakes, some macrame plant holders and a few pink haired barbies. His haughty look was slightly less haughty and one of those barbies was being very inappropriate to Clyde. I didn't want to know what was going on there, so I continued down to the more G rated section of the aisle. But I felt a pulling, a calling really, drawing me back. So I turned the cart around, put the barbie on a shelf with the binders, just try something there chicky, and put Clyde in my cart. He looked as thankful as a chunk of metal can look.

I was going to paint him white and place him in the yard. But he didn't look like a white rooster. So I just stuck him outside in all his metal glory the next morning he was tipped over. I righted him. Next morning, tipped over and knocked off the porch. Something in my neighborhood has a serious beef against Clyde. Barbie must have been spreading some pretty nasty rumors. I took him back in the house. He didn't really fit in, now he seemed depressed and gray.

So into the craft room he went. I used the rest of the destroyed book of Black Beauty to cover him. I had already sliced out the pictures and put them aside for a project. I brought them out. I made a template for the wings and the tail feathers. I cut the photos and then lined them up on the wings and reassembled the pictures. This is very time consuming. I believe Clyde was handmade by someone since he is a very rough bird. I did the pictures for both wings and both tail feathers. I needed to make a template for each piece, since they were not the same in any way. I covered the comb (the part on top of his head) and his eyes in the same way.
For his eyes, I cut out an actual horse word and used them for the pupil of the eye. I decoupaged and sanded each section. After it was dry I used a glaze(which you really can't see too well in the photos, but shows up nicely in real life) which gave the pictures a wet look. I put a few coats of this on.For the body, I used the actual pages. Again with the decoupage and the sanding but no glaze. After I finished the body (which took a loooooong time) I painted over the pages with a watered down pink paint. After it was dry I put on some umber paint. Then I sealed him up with 4 coats of a top coat sealer.

Now he spends his days looking regal on the entry way table. No barbies to lead him down the garden path but I do catch him looking askew at the little chalk ware bird that sits next to him. That Clyde, what a rascal!