Watch The Birdy! An Altered Bird :O))

Hey Peeps,

Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....I finally got to alter a bird! Tis a long story all about getting the birds imported into the UK...then paying an extortionate amount of import duty...but I can safely say it was deffo worth it...cos I looooved every minute of altering this little fella...and I got to play at Linda's house and I reckon some of her talent must have rubbed off on me...cos for the second time in a week I am chuffty tuffty with what I made!




I asked Grim to do the photo's with his proper camera cos the ones I took were naff...but I got let loose with Paint Shop Pro so blame me for the quality LOL




The bird started off as a Red Cardinal and as usual, I forgot to get a snap of him prior to the altering...but you can imagine...he was red and looked realistic and came readily attached to a little wooden block.





I had picked up a couple of little wooden cars in a charity shop a couple of months ago with altering in mind...and it was obvious that the bird needed to stand on one! Linda's John very kindly drilled the holes for me...he must have known I would have damaged something if I had been left to my own devices :O))




The bird came heavily painted and needed to be sanded properly...so after about 3 seconds of sanding I decided to just paint over the top...*patience is not one of my virtues!* LOL...I used Claudine Hellmuth's fabby Traditional Tan paint as a base and then Faded Jeans CracklePaint over the top of it...and then once all the paint dried and started to flake away and show the red thru again...and after a lot of laughing...I just slapped some watered down Traditional Tan on and hoped for the best!




The crackles have been filled with gold wax, so the red isn't so visible now!! I used Wendy Vecchi's amazingly wonderful Studio 490 stamps to add dots to the bird, car and for the headgear, wings and tail adornments...stamped onto Grungepaper...and then distressed.





The wings are a couple of Studio 490 leaves which have been held in by a gold tack...yes, I used a hammer...and no, I didn't hit myself with it!! ROFL The tail features a bottle cap filled with DooDads and Sepia Accents...and it says Trust Art...which I think is a perfect sentiment. I also made him some specs...using florists wire and a paintbrush...and then making them golden with Precious Metal paint. I think he looks rather distinguished!





The crown was made using a few Idea-ology bits and a fancy lionface doorknob thingy...and the Idea-ology spinner is there so you can point the bird in the right direction! The little car has also got hardware attached...to the hubcaps, the windscreen and I made a little "bumper" so it can be pulled along.



I think that is about it...it took a day to do but I looooved making this so much...and ... I have one more bird left to play with too! Oh, and this is a photo of my hand...after a day playing with ink n paint ... I somehow don't think I would ever get a job as a jewellry model :O))




Thanks for looking....please pop over to Linda's blog...cos her bird is making its debut there today too!

Hels x