Project Macaroni Penguin

There are times when things just work out. This weekend was one of them. It was as if the crafting gods smiled upon me and said….“your dad is coming….he’ll coordinate and supervise the macaroni penguin” project. Which, mind you, was due in just three short days.

This is the project, if you remember, that Bill said was “all mine.”

I knew my dad was up to the challenge. This is the same man who singlehandedly crafted my pledge book for my Chi Omega little sis all those years ago. I was in danger of having to drop out of my sorority until my dad got out a glue gun and some fabric and whipped out a pretty impressive pledge book.

And for this project I had made the prerequisite trip to Hobby Lobby for some Model Magic and feathers for our macaroni penguin. I had also googled macaroni penguin … the “research phase” of the project, if you will. Savannah and I just hadn’t started the actual construction.

And just as an aside, so you can’t say you never learned anything here, I can tell you this about the macaroni penguin. It’s called “macaroni” because of the feathers that stick out of it’s head. This comes from the song “Yankee Doodle” where Yankee himself “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni”. (You sang that in your head while you read it, didn’t you?) Macaroni was a popular hair style in Britain back in the day and ole Yankee was making fun of the British and their coiffure. I never knew Yankee had a sense of humor.

Anyway, back to the penguin.

After printing out a picture of the penguin for Savannah and my dad, the project commenced.

Savannah carved the beak with Grandy’s pocketknife. Grandy ALWAYS has a knife in his pocket. ALWAYS. You know, in case someone needs to carve a bird beak out of model magic. You just never know.

A little work on the body…

And before I knew it, we had ourselves a macaroni penguin. A very cute macaroni penguin I might add.

The resemblance to the real thing is uncanny.

I did mention to Savannah that maybe we should get a blue paper plate to carry the bird in on…to look like water and all. Then she said…“oh AND we could rent a snow machine and make snow to go around”. I acted like I didn’t hear her and we dropped even the plate idea.

And this morning when she picked up the bird to take to school, I honestly thought it looked like she was about to decapitate the bird. She said “he looked a little sad” so she propped his head a little to make him look a bit more cheery before his big second grade debut.

And when Savannah got out of the car in carpool line this morning… the girl that got out of the car in front of us…well, let’s just say her mom must have an art degree or something. She had a giant blue feathered bird that looked real…complete with a habitat. (I knew I should have gotten a plate!)

And for a second I felt a little bad about the penguin, but then I remembered that “comparison is the thief of joy.”

And besides, I bet her Grandy didn’t help make hers!