HAPPY NATIONAL CHICKEN MONTH!

Cluuuck!

(that's chicken talk, have no idea what it means)

c.1911

Happy National Chicken Month

September 1 - 30

There are many National Month of Sept. holidays.

I picked CHICKEN today because they are so silly.

a quin gold chicken, by Amy Hautman

When I go to the state or county fairs, I love to pop into the 'chicken' house and look at all the different varieties of chickens and roosters.

They almost always have a large incubator with baby chicks hatching.

I think everyone should see at least once in their life

a baby chick hatching.

You have to beware however

there are imposters....

www.boxvox.net

 http://www.midcenturymenu.com/

BUDGET PAPERCUTTING CARD MAKING IDEA:

 I found this great page of chicken silhouettes.

Why not cut out a bunch and

grab some red checkered paper

(some restaurants have it for their baskets.

Ask if you can have a few clean sheets!).

You could also recycle a picnic tablecloth.

Grab some plain white cardstock and envelopes.

Cut or tear a square of checkered paper that will fit onto the front of the card.

Glue down.

I like to leave my edges loose/tattered, so I glue about 1" - 1 1/2" from the edge.

Place one of your chicken papercuttings in the middle,

or to one side

or to one side with room for a greeting.

Quick and super easy.

These cards could be:

Thinking of You

Missed you at the church potluck

Get well, here's some Chicken Soup

Happy Birthday...from one old cluck to another

invitation for dinner

invitation for a BBQ

or whatever you think of!

from shutterstock.com

a chickens of the world poster

http://www.doshie-egg.tumblr.com/

We can't have chickens without roosters, now can we?

Many of the vintage songsheets and posters call a rooster a

Chanticleer.

Anyone know why?

Let me know!

You can always leave a message at the bottom in the comments section.

c.1910

c.1910

I'm sorry, I don't have time to type in the chicken recipe I have chosen.

I will get it to you in another blog session.

So, let's do some coloring and puzzles!

I did find this funky birdhouse:

www.londonbirders.com

or how about this punk chicken?!!!

'Punk Chicken' from http://www.redcombfarm.com/

Here are a couple of vintage cards, more along the line of Easter:

Some more vintage songsheet covers -

don't forget to check Indiana U's web site, on the right.

c.1853

c.1910

c.1910

from the Follies of 1910

Next up is a painting by one of my favorite Chinese artists,

Mr. Ou Lang

Here are two more paintings done by Chinese artists:

note the cherry blossoms!

I'm pretty sure those are squash blossoms behind the chickens.

a cochin rooster

a vintage booklet

Next is some questionable candy...

does anyone remember ever eating this?

It doesn't sound very good to me by the name!

interesting ad promotion however!!

Well, it's getting time I need to leave you.

My husband and I are going out for breakfast this morning,

and it's already 10am!

I'm hungry.

c.1912

I bet this little chick is glad the big ol' dog isn't hungry!

Saint Bernards - great dogs if they're not overbred.

A chicken maze -

and let's go out with a bang!

'Chicken Conga' by Delilah Smith

I love that painting!

Remember, go out for lunch/dinner and search for that free red checkered paper!

inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

dominoes@myinkspired.com

Easter Egg-cellent!

Good morning!

Or afternoon.....or night....depends on where in the world you are!



I have just been checking my 'stats' and am thrilled to see I have had folks from Spain, Malaysia, Israel, Egypt, Russia, South Korea, Mexico, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Italy visit - in addition to the United States!!!

Wow! Thanks for spreading the news of my blog! :0)

Today's focus is on Easter Eggs!



As I was looking through my files and some searches on Google, I had so much fun checking out all the pretty eggs! I have taken photos of the first batch of eggs that I have decorated this year, and hope to download them to edit later today.
Let's start with these lovelies:

Simple directions:

Start out with plastic eggs. Yep, plastic!
Apply various stickers - in this case multi-colored dots.
You're done!  What a great craft for little ones to participate in.

Now another idea:

Start by dying hard boiled eggs in various shades. Use those cheap Easter Egg dye kits! I get mine at the Dollar Store.

Get out your wonderful Aleene's Tacky Glue in the gold bottle, and scraps of ribbon, little silk flowers and stick on flat back rhinestones.
Check out the photos for placement ideas.
The artist as also used tiny felt flowers and a small covered button.
Beautiful!

Many churches do not have 'children's hour' during the Easter Sunday service. I think this is great. Even little ones need to learn how to behave during a church service (or a concert, or a play...). Most churches have some kind of special service to celebrate the Risen Saviour. Our church always has a terrific choir cantata. The kids don't have to sit through a (very long to them) sermon (Pastor does have a short sermon however!), and can celebrate with the music, even if they are too little to understand the words yet.



So, what are those kids supposed to do during that time? I think it is unreasonable to expect children to all of a sudden be quiet for perhaps a one and one half hour service, much of it sitting.

I know some parents bring an assortment of crayons and coloring pages. But why are the kids coloring Tinker Bell in church? Let's at least use that coloring time for a subject that relates to the service.

When I was growing up Dad often asked my sister and I, after church, what we learned that Sunday. Oooo, I hated that! That meant I had to pay attention to at least part of the service to be able to answer him! (My sister perfected the "open eyes sound asleep" thing. I was so jealous!)



So, here's my suggestion:

Go back through some of my blogs, and print out the coloring pages that you think would be relative to an Easter Sunday service.

Not a parent?

That's okay! You may be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin or just the lady that sits behind the family with kids.

BE PREPARED!!

Here are a few pages to get you started:

Here is another simple but oh-so-pretty Easter Egg project for displays:

First the hard part:
Blow out the eggs.
That means taking a T pin (or corsage pin) and poke a hole in the top (pointed) end of the egg. Take a smaller pin and poke a hole in the bottom. Now go back to the pointy end. Make the hole larger, to be able to fit a few thin stems of flowers. Really, not too big!
Now....Blow through the tiny pricked end, and the raw egg will come out the bigger hole.
Yeah, that's the only way to do it that I have discovered.
Keep blowing. You can encourage things by poking the yolk inside with your Tpin to break things up.
Keep blowing until empty.
Sit, let the oxygen return to your brain.
Do another one!

Now take a nice paper cup - not the styrofoam unless that is all you have. Trim the cup to go half way up the egg. Tall enough so the egg doesn't topple over.
You can add a few glass marbles to the bottom to prevent tipping also. Make sure you re-adjust the height of the paper cup.

Gather some little silk grass blades, or use Easter Egg crumpled paper grass, or cut your own little snippets of tissue paper or crepe paper into tall leaf blades.

Just before you wish to display, snip some small flowers. Some ideas are johnny-jump-ups, daisies, columbines, pansies, or the small narcissus (daffodils). Fill each egg with water. The tiny hole from the bottom should have 'self healed' so very few water drops should escape. Place flower in top. Place egg vase in the cut paper cups. Arrange a few leaves on the outside. Refer to photo.



Are your eggs leaking too much water? Try a quick dab of hot glue.

Why not use these as name place markers, using a pen to write each name on an egg cup. After nuncheon, the guests can take their own egg vases home.

These eggs were made in the Ukraine, but using traditional Mexican patterns:

I won't go into details on how to make these,

but it involves bee's wax coating the egg,

and then pressing  seed beads into the wax.





Not sure, but the artist perhaps used decals? For instance, dye the hard boiled egg baby yellow. Then apply decal. Smooth edges with a fingernail. Dye egg spring green. Remove the decals, and you get the egg in the top row.

A felted egg with beaded embellishments:

These are painted wood eggs:

Or perhaps we should just wait for the Easter Bunny to decorate our eggs?



So who created the Easter Bunny any-who-how?

Think about it.

Doesn't make sense, other than eggs and rabbits are both strong fertility symbols.

Here's an unusual Easter wannabe Bunny!



American proverbs:

'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' - means:

don't plan on an outcome before it actually happens.

Here is another Easter Egg dying tip:

Place one teaspoon of cooking oil in the prepared dye.

This will make irregular spots on the eggs!

Hope you have enjoyed this Easter Egg-cellent blog!

http://www.inkspiredmusings.blogspot.com/

inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

http://www.myinkspired.com/

dominoes@myinkspired.com