Donald Featherstone, inventor of the pink flamingo lawn ornament, pasted away on June 22. Mr. Featherstone created the pink flamingo in 1957 after graduating from art school at the Worcester Art Museum. He worked at Union Products in Leominster, MA and the pink flamingo was one of 750 items he created for the company.
These particular pink flamingos (as the patent was held ONLY by Union Products) is stamped MADE IN THE USA, Leominster MASS. I believe you can now buy them made in China, but if I am going to have tacky lawn ornaments in my yard, you can bet they are going to be USA ones only (and made in my hometown)!! Find them here!
A swap-bot swap was created to memorialize Mr. Featherstone and his pink creation! I decided on a felt ornament.
I used wool felt for the body and beak.
Ribbon for the wings. And I got to try out my new woodburning tool. It did a great job of cutting and melting the ribbon (so that it doesn't fray) getting a nice wing shape. Let me add that this should be done in a well ventilated area!
I have totally made other things with ribbon, but I didn't burn the quantity as quickly as with this tool, so I thought I would be ok. Yeah, so two hours later, I still had a headache! I'm sure an open window, or a fan would have been fine...Lesson learned!
I only tacked about an inch of the wings toward the neck so they can move and give it a bit more third dimension.
The legs are some natural colored twine I found. The hanger thread was supposed to be a bit of pink ribbon from my stash, but it some how disappeared, and I had to use some white two-ply thread.
If you want the template, I'm sharing it on Google Drive, click here
I think he's cute. (funny, I think of it as a he, even though he's pink with polka dot wings! and yea, I realize actual flamingos are pink and can be male.) I hope my swap partner likes him too!
Happy Creating!
