Happy Fall! We love doing crafts in our house and I'm always looking for new ideas to inspire my kids' creativity.
One of our generous sponsors, St. Landry Lumber Co. supplied us with some promotional items including paint stirrer sticks for our BOO Buckets which inspired this fall craft! Make a scarecrow. Our Boo Buckets contain a kit with supplies to make these but this is a simple and affordable craft you can do with the kids at home.
In addition to the wooden sticks, we used pipe cleaners of various sizes and colors, fuzzy pom poms, googly eyes, and yarn to create the arms, eyes, hair and accessories. We used washable markers for the face and drawing in our scarecrow's top and bottom because they worked well on the wood and easy to use for less mess, however you can paint your sticks or design them however you like.
You will also need liquid glue and scissors. You can use hot glue instead to apply the pipe cleaners and fuzzy pom poms onto the stirrer sticks but use caution and close supervision with young children. Arrange craft items and have your kiddo test out different ideas for designing their face and body before applying the glue. Leave the curved top of the paint stirrer stick bare to make the hat.
We made a few accessories with our pipe cleaners like this hat using a pipe cleaner cut into 2 pieces. Bend one piece into a V shape (or square shape) for the top of the hat and twist each end around the straight piece for the brim. Other variations - Use a big pom pom and straight piece of pipe cleaner to form a hat or simply let them color it in with marker or paint.
Use yarn for 'straw hair' by cutting into small pieces. I found it worked best to tie these together then glue onto the stick.
 |  |
Feel free to use additional craft items you may have such as popsicle sticks, ribbon, buttons, etc. Go wild!
To use for outdoor décor and stick in your flower pots we suggest using acrylic paint instead of markers for the face and body and hot glue for attaching the accessories!
We thought these paint stirrer sticks were also an ideal shape for a Frankenstein as an alternative to the scarecrow!!!
Find more Fall and Halloween Fun to fill up your activity time at home and don't forget to check out our calendar of events for all of the festivities happening around Acadia and St. Landry parish!
