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Cher

Cher and the Ruffled Chicken

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Chickens are in.
I went out shopping for a baby shower gift the other day and found myself surrounded by chickens. Not bears. Not Elmo. Not Barney the purple dinosaur.

Chickens.

Has anyone else noticed how certain animals come in cycles of popularity? These days, chickens are everywhere. So are owls. Maybe chickens are the new owl. I’m pretty sure owls were the new giraffe.

I’m hoping the new chicken will be the seahorse. Is there are anything more musical and triumphant looking than a seahorse?

This animal thing is new, though. When I was a kid it was all about clowns. Every kid I knew had scary ass clowns printed on their sheets or wastebasket or something. Creepy. At least it wasn’t as bad as those who were raised in the late seventies, or what I affectionately refer to as The Mushroom Years – a stretch of time when clumps of ocher colored fungi adorned everything from wall clocks to toilet seats.
Do you know someone who is still harboring a decorative mushroom wall hanging?
Yeah. Thought so.  

Ready to join in the chicken trend?

Start by tracing a cutting out hand prints. Quantity will vary, but I can tell you it took 18 six-year-old hand prints to cover a large pasta  box. Bigger hands or a smaller box would trim it down, but really, who wants a trimmed chicken?

 Roll the feathers slightly by curling them around a pen or pencil. This goes faster if you work in big stacks of hand prints.

Remove one side of the box and cut out the chicken’s head (dang that sounds gross)…(freehand it yourself or download the template here). Attach the head to the box using a glue stick or double-stick tape.

 Glue a row of feathers to the inside of the box. Repeat on the outside.

SHAZAM! 
Stick a fork in it. That chicken be done!
This is very Eastery but there is certainly no reason you couldn’t use it as a bread basket or something. Right? Or make a turkey. Or change the colors. 
Actually, truth be told, the original source of inspiration for this project was a float in a gay pride parade (rainbow colored, natch.) Made from crepe paper ruffles with a giant dragon head, it was as big as a flat bed truck and loaded with beefy men in hot pants dancing to Cher’s Strong Enough (the remix, natch.)
What? Don’t act like you don’t get your best ideas at a gay pride parade. The colors, the sounds, the creative liberation….you should totally go. 
Did I ever tell you about the time a drag queen showed me how to apply mascara using a toothbrush?
Another time perhaps….
Happy Easter Y’all 🙂