Gracie Lee and the Bean Rooster is not the title of a children’s picture book, (not yet anyway). What I’m talking about is the bean rooster picture families displayed on kitchen walls during the 1960s and 1970s. Some of my younger readers may not have experienced the joy of the bean rooster. Back during the days of Paint-By-Number, when we cut paper dolls from the Sears Catalog and life wasn’t perfectly staged for Pinterest, moms and kids gathered around the dining room table to glue beans to a pattern. Every type and color of dried bean.
I thought peas looked way better on rooster tail feathers than on my plate.
The bean rooster was a work of Americana art.
Momma proudly displayed ours on the small section of kitchen wall space behind the back door, and Nana hung one at the lake cabin. The one at the lake became infested by some sort of bug, and I suppose we threw it out. Or maybe we dosed it in bug spray. I don’t remember. But I remember exactly how it looked and where it hung and how I thought it was the coolest thing especially the whole idea that beans could become art.
If you’d like to relive this art project, or if you’d like to experience it for the first time, I found this pattern at Cotton Arts Boutique. Perfect snow day project, I say. Gracie Lee would agree.
Cock-a-doodle-doo,
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
[tweetthis]Did you have a bean rooster on your kitchen wall? #vintage #crafts #makewithme #GracieLee[/tweetthis]
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Do you think we have time to make one while you are home for your book signing? Prolly not!!
My children did, of course. Thanks for the memories!
Never made a bean rooster but I did glue macaroni to a ladies shoe and spray paint it. Whitton Baptist Church( Vacation Bible School).
Greatness, Mark.
I never got around to making one, but I admired them when they were in vogue.
I’m not familiar with this tradition, Talya, but I must admit I was raised in the south by Yankee parents, so that probably accounts for my lack of knowledge in this department. 🙂 Certainly sounds like a great craft I’ll try with my oldest granddaughter. Thanks for sharing!
Blessings!
I’m looking for the plans for these! My grandmother and her sister-in-law made some. The hen didn’t last but the rooster did. I grew up loving the rooster. She just passed in February and I I inherited it. So, I’d love to get my hands on some patterns to make a few with my kids to keep Granny’s rooster company on my dining room wall.
I hope you can find a pattern. Such a classic!