Rooster of Freedom

We live in a neighborhood in North Baltimore City, and although it is mostly quiet, residential community, it definitely has a "city" vibe. So the arrival of a rooster, who makes his presence known starting at about 4:30AM, has been the source of some local excitement. Like many U.S. cities, Baltimore has loosened its agriculture laws recently in response to fresh-food efforts and increased understanding of safe livestock handling. The woman who takes care of our dogs & iguana while we travel lives just a bit north of us and keeps several chickens in her relatively-small backyard. I think this practice is still common in many parts of the world, but it's not a familiar sight around here. Yet!

So far, no one's saying who the rooster belongs to... Which is mostly fine with me, since I'm sure some people aren't as smitten with him as I am, except that he gets out & about. Three kids followed him into our yard last week; we live on a corner, so I tend to tune out street sounds, but you can't ignore a child's cries of "Catch that chicken!" They pointed out the rooster under the bushes in our front yard, and, after convincing them that I did not, in fact, need them to catch the chicken for me, the little guy made a run for it with the kids hot on its trail. I'm assuming they all had a great time, because every child should get to chase a chicken at some point, and Mr Rooster was back on duty the next morning. But I did wish I could call the owner and let them know. My husband, however, is convinced that it's just a loose street-rooster. Which is also fine with me, because if you can survive the Baltimore Rats, you can survive anything.

Just to round off this long story, I'd like to note that I always think of the Portuguese legend of the Rooster of Barcelos, and that whenever I hear a rooster crow some part of me thinks, "An innocent man has gone free."

Anyway, I feel like this rooster has become the unofficial mascot of our neighborhood, so when I saw the freebie at A Day for Daisies, I just had to use it!

I printed the digi twice: once on fabric, and once on plain paper. I used a blue thread to stitch the outline; I think it came out pretty well, considering I've never done this before. I wanted to add some color, so I colored the plain paper piece and placed the material directly on top of it. I adhered the fabric onto the paper by running the paper through my sticker machine.

The gold "frame" is actually a Rolo wrapper; my husband saved it for me, and it was perfect for this project. I just glued the fabric-covered piece onto the square wrapper and folded over the corners.

The papers are from a Tim Holtz paper pad set. I cut the doily with the "Flower" Mini Lucky 8 Punch from We R Memory Keepers. The sentiment stamp is from a Crafters Companion/Beatrix Potter set, and is stamped in a bright blue on manila paper. I added a bit of Antique Linen distress ink, and put it in the metal frame and attached it to the card with the brads. The card was finished with some Dry Wall tape and adhesive gem flourishes.

Inspiration/Challenges:
A Day for Daisies Challenge #72: Nature + ADFD digi (thank you Tammy for this great freebie!)
Craftin Desert Divas: On the Farm
Delicious Doodles Challenge #41: Stitch it!
The Paper Nest Dolls Challenge: Animals
Paper Playtime: Red, White & Blue
Seems a Little Sketchy: Sketch

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