I my early days of doing scarecrows, I stuffed them with straw. Where we live it rains several days in October. Occasionally it snows at least once by the end of the month. My scarecrows were smelly and starting to rot by the first of November. Often the clothes were not worth keeping more than a year or two. Last year I decided to try something different.
I was cleaning out my craft stuff and deciding what I want to use for that season. I have always crocheted and knitted a lot. Several years ago, I discovered that I could crochet with plastic grocery bags. I made a play rug for my youngest son for him to use with his cars and monster trucks. It looked like parking lots or tracks and he loved it. I also made beach bags and reusable grocery totes. I have always been big on recycling. I had saved a great deal of bags and my arthritis in my hands was making it hard to crochet the plastic. So, I was trying to decide how much I might use soon and if I should store the rest in my shed.
Suddenly I remembered stuffing an outside cushion with it so I could leave it out on rainy days. I dawned on me that it should work with my scarecrow. I started with a pair of jeans my son had outgrown. He had a growth spurt, suddenly taller than me. I put some big rubber bands on the ankles so the bags would not fall out and stuffed legs full and then the top part. I arranged the legs where I want hi to sit and got some old boots to stuff the ankles into, hiding the rubber banded area.
Next, I started the second step. I placed a large flannel shirt where I wanted it to sit on the pants and stuffed the body up to the sleeves, so it was full enough to sit up. I stuffed half of the sleeves from inside the neck then finished filling up the body enough that the neck hole stayed open. Finally, I stuffed the sleeves the rest of the way from the wrist opening so it was easy to place the arms the way I wanted them, bending a little at the elbow. I took a pair of work gloves and stuffed on bag in each. I buttoned the sleeve openings so the bags would not come out too easily and pull the gloves up over the wrists.
Final touch was to place a pumpkin on the neck opening, I used and old decorative pumpkin that we revived a few years before by painting it silver with splatters of black. Arrange his arms and legs however you want them and add a hat. I used and old gardening hat that was easiest to find this year, but I will probably hunt threw all the old stuff from years of drama club and see if I can find a straw hat. The best thing about this scarecrow is nothing purchased, just old stuff I would have been donating soon and it held up so well in the rain and a light snow, that I was able to re-use everything this year.
If you have any tips you have uses to create your own scarecrow, please share in the comments below and also share a picture if you have one.