Scarecrows!

I have always loved to do crafts with my kids. When it was just Cora we did them all the time and when Eliza came around we still found time for plenty. Add 2 more kids to the equation and it just doesn’t happen as often as I would like. It kind of makes me feel bad because they all LOVE when we do them! Hopefully this blogging journey will bring us back to more crafting around here.

I was stir crazy over the weekend after being home a lot over the past 3 weeks since Jake had his back surgery. I decided I needed a trip to Hobby Lobby to make a new “wreath” for the door and to let the kids pick out some stuff for a craft of their own.

The kids all love Hobby Lobby. I love Hobby Lobby. What’s not to love? Judah had been wearing his Spider-Man costume around the house and wanted to wear it to the store, which of course I said “absolutely” to. I adore kids in outfits that they have clearly picked out to wear. Judah looked amazing. Walking in the store with him dressed up just made me smile.

We spent a long time in the store, complete with a bathroom trip. Because why would you ever step foot in a store without someone having to go? But really I enjoyed every second picking things out with them. It was so cute to see their little personalities be drawn to the things that were so “them.” They would all be making the same scarecrow yet they would all look different, as they should!

We had to order the straw hats from amazon and wait until today to make our little fall friends, but it was actually perfect! We finished school early this morning, had nothing going on this afternoon, the house was clean (enough) and I was ready to see the pile of craft supplies become something special.

I had originally seen a few pictures of these on Pinterest but didn’t bother looking up any details. This is such an easy project! I’ll give the rundown of how we made them:

We started with the hair. I found a 3 pack of raffia which was ideal so each kid could have a different hair color. We unraveled each color and tied a knot on the middle of it to attach to the hat where the brim would fold down. We used hot glue then “styled” their hair. The girls wanted braids and Judah wanted shorter boy hair. (Tip: glue to the top of the “head” not the brim. The brim will fold down better this way.) Next we hot glued on their faces. I used googly eyes and felt for their noses and mouths. Then we folded down the brim and hot glued in place in the middle of the head.

We experimented with the bandannas and came up with an ok method. You could certainly try something different here. After folding the bandanna in half diagonally one time, we pushed an end between two rows of the straw braids that make the hat. It takes a little pulling as you go further up the bandanna but it actually didn’t tear the thread that keeps the hat together. If you want a knot to show in front, you just push the same end from the back to the front on the other side of the face and tie it. We made ours hang a little crooked on purpose. If you don’t want a knot to show, you can just push both sides in from the front and it will stay tight without even knotting behind.

Finally we added the hat decorations. We used floral picks the kids picked out at Hobby Lobby and some leftover wire mesh to add a bow (for the girls). We just shoved the picks through the hat and hid the “stems” behind the hair. The girls were kind of heavy so I did secure with a bit of floral wire, which was also how I attached the bow. On Judah’s, I just shoved the floral pick sideways under the brim fold (where he wanted it) and didn’t secure with anything. The girls topped theirs off with drawn on eyelashes and Cora added pink cheeks. We took the stampede strings that came with the hats and just popped them back through the straw near the top to hang them.

So easy, so fun and a great way for the kids’ personalities to show! What do you think? Show me if you make them too!