With a few supplies you can make this delightful and adorable fall craft for your own garden space or even host your own scarecrow fundraiser at your school
Material Requirements: 8/10
Time: 30 - 45 minutes
Age: 4-99
Sensory friendly: 10/10
Now that we are into Fall, many of our summer plants have reached the end of their life cycles and at first glance, that plant matter might seem destined for the compost pile, but wait! Before you get rid of all those dried-up stalks, crunchy brown seed pods, and shriveled vines why not use them to make some fun fall crafts? If you visit any store this time of year, chances are you will see lots of the same materials you've just yanked out of your veggie patch all dressed up and costing a fortune. This scarecrow craft is a great example, something of similar size and quality in the store would likely cost a pretty penny, but here in the garden, you can make one yourself with things you mostly already have. So grab a few friends, put on your creative hat and let's get started.
Key Design Goals
In order to make these cute scarecrows, the design had to check a lot of boxes. First and most importantly, it had to be easy! I needed kids as young as 5 to be able to work together to build this thing so it couldn't involve complicated steps, intricate pieces, or anything that required reading.
The design also needed to include:
- As many garden materials as possible
- Only repurposed items
- Creative opportunities
- Something for everyone to do
You will also notice the design DOESN'T include:
- Glue, staples, needles, or anything messy to put it together
What you will need:
For the Base:
Two pieces cut to 5' and 3' or 4' any one of these materials would work:
- 1x2 wood (one 8' piece cut to size) - this is what I used
- tree branches that are about 1" thick
- bamboo that's 1" thick
Materials for the rest of your scarecrow:
Items to thrift:
- One long sleeve shirt (ideally button down)
- 1 pillowcase
- Hat
- Other items to decorate your scarecrow
- A square scrap of fabric
- Yarn or other crafting materials to dress or decorate your scarecrow
From the garden:
- Straw, Hay, or Dried leaves for filling the body
- Dried corn stalks, vines, or other plant materials
Recycled materials:
- 2-3 paper plates or a circle of cardboard
- 1 plastic grocery bag or similar
Craft materials:
- floral wire, twine, or strong string
- Acrylic paint pens or fabric markers
- Optional: Yarn for the hair
Putting it all together
Start by building your frame. It is a very simple cross shape. Using your 1x2 measure out to 5' and cut your board. Now you have 2 pieces that are 5' and 3'. On the longer piece, trim the bottom into more of a stake so that it will be easier to hammer into the ground. On the top, measure 6-8" from the top and attach your second board using a 1 1/4" screw.
Unbutton your scarecrow's shirt and dress it around your frame, treating the crossbar like the shoulders. Button up the shirt, and roll the sleeves up until the cuffs sit on the end of your shoulder bar.
Using your floral wire or string, cinch the waist of your scarecrow about 12" from the bottom of the shirt. This will give your scarecrow body its shape and it will close it off so you can begin stuffing it.
Now, grab your corn husks and stuff them into the armholes.
Next stuff the body of your scarecrow with hay, straw, or dried leaves.
And just like that, you have a scarecrow body!
Now it's time to build the head
To make the head you will need:
- 2-3 paper plates or a circle of cardboard
- half a pillowcase or scrap fabric
- 1 plastic shopping bag
- floral wire or twine
- straw/leaves
- paint pens
- pencil
- 1 stick about 18" long
Building from the inside out, take your plates and plop a big bunch of leaves or straw on top of them like you're serving up a plate of french fries. Now slide the whole thing into your plastic bag. Place the stick on top of that so that it is resting inside the bag and comes out the bottom. Then gather up the bag into your hand cinching it to the stick. It will look like one giant lollipop in your hand (see drawing). Holding the lollipop, you're going to drape your pillowcase fabric over the top of the whole thing like a big fabric wrapper and gather it into your hand just like you did for the bag.
Use your twine or floral wire and tie off the fabric and bag so that everything is nice and tight around your scarecrow head.
The bag is there to provide waterproofing, the plates/cardboard are there to give you a nice flat drawing surface, and the fabric hides everything with a nice finished appearance.
Now that you have your head lollipop, you can draw the face.
Drawing your face
Now for the really fun part, decorating! The face will set the personality for your whole project! It can really help to practice on a piece of paper a few times to get your face exactly right. When I build these with students, I have everyone draw their designs on paper first and then we talk about what we want to use for the final design.
Once you have determined your face design, use a pencil to sketch it onto your blank scarecrow head and then follow over the lines with your acrylic pens or fabric markers.
If you have multiple students interested in drawing the face, this is a good opportunity to break the task into smaller jobs. Someone can fill in the eyes, someone else can color the nose, and so on.
Once the head is finished, bring it over to your scarecrow and slide it down into the neck hole of the shirt. On the back, use floral wire or twine to secure it to the main frame.
Making the Hair
There are lots of creative opportunities in making your scarecrow hair. You can use bunches of old corn husks, yarn, torn pieces of fabric, dried vines, and so many other materials. Some of the best designs came from combining all of them into one cool mop of hair. It can be really helpful to have wire or twist ties for this part so that you can easily bind together clumps of materials. Once you have them made, you can attach them to your scarecrow hat by weaving the wire or string through the weave of the hat and twisting it or knotting it off. This will also make for easier storage and customization each year as you can remove the hat and rotate in different hair designs.
Add some personal touches!
Once your hair/hat are finished, come back to your scarecrow and place it on top of the head. This will officially bring your whole creation to life! Now that it's a finished scarecrow, embellish it however you would like! One of my favorite options is to create a handkerchief that can be tied around the scarecrow's neck. We have all the students sign the handkerchief so that everyone has an opportunity to individually express themselves. This also shows just how many loving hands went into crafting the project.
Sometimes picking a theme is also really fun. This one is a Disney Tourist-themed scarecrow!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you attempt this very cute and easy scarecrow design!
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