Adorable Sustainable Scarecrows

First, let me say, I love fall and everything it entails. I love the cooler weather and watching the leaves fall. I find fall colors to be so soothing and warm. I just love fall. I also love to decorate for fall. This year I decided to go with scarecrows as my theme. My decorating budget is very small so it was time to get to thinking. The idea of recycled scarecrows came about when I was looking at a pile of pallet scraps left over from another project we did that needed to be cleaned up. 

Scarecrows are also great for fall because they can  work as decorations  from  September until Thanksgiving. You can add a few little Halloween touches in October and then just add some gourds or uncut pumpkins and such in November.  Or do neither and leave them how they are.It is nice to be able to get some time out of the decorations that you took time to make. This is also a fun project to do with the whole family. Even the little ones. You also teach a valuable lessons in sustainability and creativity. A project like this teaches children that items can be reused and not everything needs to be bought  new at a store. Projects like this will spark their imagination. Projects like this can also build family bonds and makes memories not matter how it turns out. When I  was little, I loved to help my dad with projects ,especially, holiday ones. 

Make a Sustainable (almost free)Scarecrow

Supplies needed:

A Pallet

Rope(we used old clothes line)

Staple gun

Drill and screws or hammer and nails

hand saw

Old clothes(hats, pants, shirts, skirts)

Fabric for heads- could be old sheets, pillow cases, or shirts

plastic shopping bags for stuffing heads

A little about making frames from pallets

In order to make the frames for our scarecrows we used free pallet that we took apart.  The first piece you need is a tall piece the height of your scarecrow. If needed pallet pieces can be pieced together to make it tall enough. We screwed together one longer piece then a smaller piece. Boards can lap over too. You will not see this. Second, you need to add shoulders. We measured our shoulder and cut pieces to match. Then screw or nail this piece to the front of your frame. 8-10 inches from the top. For girl scarecrows add another piece at the bottom that is about 5 inches longer roughly 10 inches from the bottom. This will help the shirt or dress to look full and give you somewhere to secure it to.

  Guidance for Making Heads and Faces

To make the head you need a piece of fabric about 30 x 30.  Does not need to be cut exact or be a square.  the extra will be tucked down in the neck of the clothing. When in doubt use a bigger piece. Gather and tie the fabric around the neck. Stuff with plastic shopping bags and staple to the back of the post.

 To make a girl head with pony tail. Gather and tie fabric around the neck.stuff in plastic bags. Staple up the back securing fabric to post. Stuff more plastic bags if needed. Gather up to fabric and pull to one side and tie. Cut fabric that is sticking up into 1 in strips. Add an old bow. We used one that had gotten an ink stain on it.

To make the faces I used permanent black marker, orange, white, and pink craft paint. All you have to be able to paint is circles, lines, and triangles.

Lastly, Dress your scarecrows. This is the fun part. You can use old clothes of your own or hit the thrift store. We used a combination of both.  Just use a staple gun and rope to secure the clothing to the stake. Altogether our scarecrows cost less than Five dollars.

More Pictures

The Pumpkins on the sides were made last year from scrap tin.