Chickens, Chickens, Chickens

    Our first Design Team Challenge for September was to take photos of a collection or create a collection of photos.  I chose to create a collection of photos of my collection of chickens--boy was that a mouthful!  

     Many years ago, I started collecting chickens of all sorts.  Some were ones I purchased, and some were gifts.  I decided I had too many and that I was tired of them.  I got rid of most of them at garage sales, etc.  However, my friends and family must have decided that I needed new ones, so they kept giving them to me for various occasions.   Thus began my second collection of chickens.  As I started taking photos of some of them for this project (hens, roosters, and baby chicks), I began to realize how many I have actually accumulated.  

     I have included here just a few--there are probably over 200 more.  They range from wall hangings to books, scarves, cross stitch pictures, stained glass panels, plates, cups, a lamp, a canister set, stuffed ones which play the chicken song, pillows, clothes (t-shirts, sweaters, jumpers, etc.), and figurines--glass, ceramic, metal, etc.

     Using the Sunflower grid paper (there are actually sunflowers on the wall hanging in the lower left), I tried to show a good sampling of my collection on these two pages and make the pattern of the second page a mirror image of the first, as much as possible.   In the lower right of the second page, I silhouetted the lamp, because I wanted it all to show.   Then I surrounded the two bottom center pictures with chicken-wire patterned paper.  The final touch is chicken tracks along the bottom, which I "doodled".  I was going to put them all the way around the outside edges, but I "chickened out!"

     I think I gained some insight into my propensity for chickens.  While this project was in progress, I discovered that the book which is shown on page one, "Famous Chicken Stories," was first published the year I was born (1944), and I have had it as far back as I can remember.

     Sorry about the quality of the page one closeup, I don't know what happened and was unable to correct it.  The original pages don't look as yellow as they do here.

     This is probably going to be one of my favorite layouts, and  it will definitely be included in the scrapbook I am going to create about my life, if I can ever find the time.  (I have done everyone else's already.)