Jackson Giraffe

My friend Barb's daughter just had a little baby boy.  Jackson.  I haven't seen him yet, but I'm sure he's as sweet as can be.  His mommy had requested a giraffe for his nursery, and Grandma Barb was quick to make that happen.  She asked me if I could come up with something.  I did. 

Meet Jackson Giraffe:

I had never made a giraffe before, so this was a new challenge I was happy to take on. 

As always, I began with a wire and foil armature.  I had to create a long neck, but still make it fairly sturdy, which was a trick.  In the end, the neck is slightly thicker than I would have liked, and I had to redo his legs because they were too spindly in proportion, but overall, I think it ended up fine. 

I covered the armature with a pretty tan color, then set about the task of adding his spots.  They are pieces of caramel brown clay I flattened out with my fingers and placed on his body.  Each one individually.  It was a long process, but a successful one.  His little tail is reinforced with wire. 

I think Jackson has a really cute expression on his face.  His little horns are made from painted toothpicks and little balls of clay. 

Since this adorable giraffe is for a little boy, I didn't want to frill him up too much.  A simple but cute bow of blue grosgrain ribbon with a little white stitch was tied around his neck.  But it needed just a little 'something' to make it special.  So I dug around in my stash of embellishments and found a cute little wooden tag with the letter J on it.  Perfect, but not enough.  A little silver bell.  Yep.  How about a darling white frosted star button?  Nice.  But how to attach all these cute little doo-dads?  I tried using a safety pin, but it just didn't look right.  So back into the stash I went.  I found this perfect spiral paperclip, already the perfect shade of light blue!  I grabbed some silver jump rings and twisted all the charms on to the clip, then slid the end of the clip through the knot of the bow.  It worked! 

The finishing touch of my signature glass glitter on his blue clay base and Jackson Giraffe was done! Grandma Barb was quite pleased.  I haven't heard from Mommy, but I sure hope she likes it, too!

I like this giraffe so much I am considering adding him to my line of whimsical characters available in my etsy shop.  What do you think?  Is he a keeper?

I hope you all have had a great weekend!  I'm on a little mini-vacation, so no work for me this week!

Lisa