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Garland Chick

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by Noreen Doll.

Craft an easy garland chick that has lots of personality.

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This fun chick can sit on your Easter table or guard the goodies in an Easter basket.

I found the garland and the styrofoam balls at Dollar Tree, so they were very inexpensive.

What You Need

Yellow Garland

Styrofoam Balls in 2 inch and 3 inch sizes

Craft Foam Scraps – Orange and Black

1 Orange Pipe Cleaner

Hot Glue or Tacky Glue

Toothpick

What You Do

1. Prepare the garland chick body. Flatten the bottom of the larger ball by rubbing it hard on a flat surface. Make sure it is flat enough to sit without rolling.

2. Use a toothpick to poke a hole in the top of the larger ball, and wiggle it around a bit to slightly enlarge the hole.

Poke a hole with the toothpick in the bottom of the smaller ball.

Fill both holes with glue and press the toothpick halfway into the larger ball. Quickly place the smaller ball on the other end of the toothpick and press the balls firmly together.

Let dry.

3. Prepare the garland.  Because my garland had colored foil eggs attached, I pulled them off.

The garland was on a thin wire, so I wrapped it around my hand to prepare the wire for being wound around the ball.

4. If using tacky glue, cover the entire surface of the larger ball, except for the flat bottom. Begin winding the garland starting at the bottom.

Stick the end of the wire into the ball to help hold the garland in place while you wind. Keep the rounds close together, and even overlap to get good coverage. Press the rounds into the glue.

(If using hot glue, you need to add it a little at a time as you wind the garland onto the ball.)

Cover all of the large ball up to the small ball.

5. Add glue all over the small ball and continue wrapping the garland around it. Finish by curling the garland around on top of the small ball.

Cut off the excess. Let dry.

6. Make the feet by using the diagram on how to bend the orange pipe cleaner. Be sure to make a small hook at each end for securing the back of the foot to the leg.

After you finish the first foot, start the second foot at the other end of the pipe cleaner. When both feet are finished, gently curve the pipe cleaner evenly between them.

Here’s what the finished feet should look like.

7. Make a narrow indentation in the center of the bottom side of the large ball just large enough for the legs. I used the tip of my scissors to make the slot.

Fill the indentation with glue. Push the top of the legs firmly into the slot. Leave upside down to dry.

After it’s dry, you could add a piece of duct tape across the slot to help ensure the legs will stay. Mine won’t be handled much, so it’s fine without.

8. Find the best side of the body and head for the front.

Because the garland was long and scraggly, I trimmed it just a little shorter where I was going to add the face.

9. Cut a beak and eyes from craft foam or felt scraps as shown.

10. Using glue, attach the beak to the head.

11. Glue the eyes above the beak, keeping them fairly close together.

To get an idea of how you want the face to look, lay the beak and eyes on the table and move them around until you like the result. Then add them to the face that way.

Your garland chick is finished. He would be cute sitting in an Easter nest on the table surrounded by candy eggs or jelly beans.

Tips

Preschool kids might be a little young for this project, but older kids can have fun with it.

If using hot glue, make sure an adult is there for that part.

Using a fluffier garland without the wire center would make a fluffy looking garland chick, and might be easier to put together.

You could make the chick larger by using larger styrofoam balls. An egg shape would work also.

Noreen Doll

Crafty Journal

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Comments

  4. That little chick does have SO MUCH personality! Thanks for the GREAT directions of how to have a darling chick of our own. I saw your post over at Creations by Kara blog party.

  12. I’ve seen this project for the past two weeks, you beat me to every party. He’s so cute, and easy to make. Hi, I’m Connie @ http://hotflashncraftn.blogspot.com/. I added you to my Google + from one of your sister sites. I’ve used them before when searching crafty projects to do with my grandchildren. Stop by and be my friend, too.

  13. That is a really cute idea! LOVE those feet!! What a crafty girl you are! I’d never be able to come up with cute ideas like that!
    So glad you joined up with Pearls and Lace Thursday!!!
    Blessings, Doni

  14. Oh my goodness.. how cute is this!!! And it looks to easy to make 🙂 Would like to invite you to share this with us at Sharing Saturday.

    Thanks so much and have a great weekend,
    MiaB

  27. Thank you so much for sharing your talent and creativity on “A Little Birdie Told Me…” Tuesday this past week! It means a lot to have you be one of our birds of a feather! I hope the party has brought some good things your way.
    Jenn/Rook No. 17

  48. I giggle inside everytime I see this little chick on blog parties. So, I finally had to open it up and look at it. This is so adorable and cute. Come visit me sometime.

  52. Wish we had the UK equivalent of your dollar store! All the discounts stores here never seem to stock this kind of helpful craft stuff! Love the tutorial though and think the Chick is cheeky! Following you – am a fellow guest on the Fluster Buster Muster today: what a range of crafty posts to read: the housework is suffering!

    Isobel

  53. I’m sorry you don’t have a Dollar Store, either. You can really afford to craft using stuff from there. Lots of times I improvise, though. Like with this chick, I wanted to use a styrofoam egg (too expensive), but found a bag of the styro balls which I used instead. You could perhaps use the shreddy looking yarn for this, or create a shreddy paper garland. Thanks for stopping to comment.

  55. Thank you all for you lovely comments… I appreciate them so much! This funky guy is a favorite of mine.

    Noreen

  64. I love this! I can’t wait to make these for Easter with my little 2 year old! She will love this! Thanks for sharing on blog stalker!

  65. This is SO cute!!!!!!! I’m not very patient with crafting, but this is something I could do without stressing myself out! The little feet are cute as can be!!! Just darling!!!

  70. He is so, so cute. I can see him sitting on my bar. Thanks for making it so easy to make one with your awesome tutorial. It would make such a sweet gift.

  77. Adorable! out of more than 600 links from Strut your Stuff, Saturday, I picked this one to open first because of how stinking cute this chick is!

  80. That is one of the cutest little things I’ve ever seen!! Pinned. Thanks for coming to (link) party with me at Super Saturday Show & Tell 🙂 xoxo~ Ruthie

  84. This is so stinkin’ cute. I never would’ve thought to repurpose garland this way!! Thanks so much. I’ll be featuring your Easter activities this week!!

  93. Awesome tutorial!!!! We will have an Easter feature this week and you will be included.
    We love your projects! Thank you so much for linking up in our Crafty Showcase! You are always so inspiring!

    Susie

  94. I’m the Editorial Assistant for Fun Family Crafts and I wanted to let you know that we have featured your project! You can see it here:

    http://funfamilycrafts.com/garland-chick/

    If you have other kid friendly crafts, we’d love it if you would submit them. If you would like to display a featured button on your site, you can grab one from the right side bar of your post above. Thanks for a wonderful project idea!

  101. What a cute idea! This would use up scraps of yarn nicely, as well! Found the post through Creative Princess Brandi’s linky party.

  102. Super cute idea! Love your little chick. I think I need to make some of these for my grandkids. Thank you for linking up to Tips and Tricks.

  106. How cute! This would be fun to make with the kiddos this weekend. Thanks for sharing at Inspire Us Thursday on Organized 31.

  107. This is so cute, seriously one of my favorite Easter crafts I’ve seen! Thanks for sharing on the weekend re-Treat link party. Hope you link up to the party again tomorrow!

    Britni

  110. That is just so adorable. Our daughter would have loved it! She`s in heaven now but someday we`ll make that together.

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