So I really don't have a pear tree. But, what I did have was a 'Yesterday's Tree'!! This was the name of the store I operated downtown until a few months ago. What does 'Yesterday's Tree' mean you might ask?? Well, what was a tree yesterday, is today's furniture....I digress.

We wanted to design a store float for last years Christmas parade. The theme of the parade was 'A Storybook Christmas'. How would we interpret this??? I thought.....and thought....and then.. of course:

A Partridge in a Yesterday's Tree!! 

   We just needed a tree, a partidge and a little furniture. I wasn't doing a blog at the time so unfortunately I don't have step-by-step with pictures. But, I can show you the finished pieces.

 

It's not your traditional looking partridge, perhaps, but it was great for a parade float! I started with a balloon blown up fairly large. This became the body. Then a much smaller balloon became the head. The tie offs were put together and then I used blue painters tape to attach the head to the body. 

   

To make the beak, I made a little funnel out of newspaper and and taped it on with the blue tape.
 Then began the paper mache--I cut loads of newspapers into strips. I mixed up glue and water in
 a medium sized stainless bowl. Then I covered the whole thing {tape and all} in the strips. Because
you need a ton of layers and it takes a long time for each layer to dry {not to mention I have the
patience of a 3 year old}, I used my hair dryer to quicken the process.
 


The balloons give you a false sense of sturdiness. They are eventually going to lose air and shrink. When this happens, it is hollow inside. If you don't have lots of layers then it can easily dent when handled. I let it dry overnight. I could have just spray painted it red at this point, but I really wanted the depth that using layers of the red tissue would provide. {You can certainly skip this step and simply spray paint it your desired color--I just like to make it as time-consuming as possible...sigh}



I mixed up more glue and water and began the process with the tissue. Only tissue is much thinner than the newspaper so I couldn't put a strip of tissue into the glue mixture--it just 'melted'. So, I applied the glue in a small section to the bird body and then lightly placed the tissue on the glued area overlapping as I went. Again, I used the dryer between layers. 

I then added a little detail to the beak with some craft paint. Then, because this bird would have to ride outside and rain was a possibility { Paper mache + rain = one. big. fat. mess!} I decided that I would arm my bird with loads of a spray satin polyurethane.  

I went to Michaels in search of my birds plumage. I found a bag of red feathers and some crazy bedazzled-slinky-Christmas-stick-things that would work perfectly. I glued little poufs of feathers to the ends of some of the 'before-mentioned stems'



I took a pair of scissors and made a small hole on the birds head for the glittery leave spray to stick through. I put a little hot glue in the opening for added security. Then I made a hole in the hiney and on the tummy for the bigger spray {it went in through the top and out the bottom} The stick coming out of the underside allowed us to attach it to our tree.

His wings were made out of red felt. I shaped them like teardrops and then with hot glue, I covered them with feathers. The rounded part of the teardrop was closet to the head. I  hot glued about 1/3 of the front of the wing to the body and then left the back part unglued so it looked 'wing-like'
. 
 
 
He was so happy sitting in his ornament wreath nest in his new home.
And he was on his best behavior floating down Main Street. 



Matter of fact, he was such a show-off that he won himself one of the 'Best in Parade' awards!