Creating some gossipy Paisley Chickens!

These cute chickens are fun to make and are beautiful decorations for your home! Each one has its own personality!

In order to prepare them for painting, I scrubbed them each with a non-abrasive scouring pad. It is good to use some bleach in your water to stop any of the molding that is going on. A simple method is to spray them with bathroom cleaner (that has bleach in it) and then scrub them.

I began by painting a base coat on each gourd, one light blue, one white, and the third- I added some white to my gold and painted it a light gold. It took about three coats to cover the gourds well.

I used dark blue to outline the paisleys on two of the gourds and the brick red to outline them on the yellow gourd. I then started filling in the paisleys with color. Each paisley is totally different from the next. I did not go by any pattern or design, just filling them in as I wanted.

Some paisleys had flowers painted in them, some just had circular designs. I added dots of color to some for a bit of variety. Working with the same color scheme on all three gourds helps to make them match each other even though no two paisley are alike.

I used polymer clay to create the comb, beak and wattle for each chicken. Don’t you just love that word, wattle? The process is to shape the clay how you would like it, then put it in a 200 degree oven for about an hour to dry. Once the pieces have cooled and hardened, they were then hot glued onto the gourds. I then painted the comb and wattle with the brick red, and the beaks with gold. 

A dot of black paint creates the eye. Add a smaller dot of white for a highlight. The final step is to add two good coats of Krylon clear matte acrylic spray to protect the paint. And then they are done!

Love painting paisleys? Here is another great painting idea! Go HERE for the instructions!