Scarecrow Shelf Sitter

 Hi Crafty Friends!

I love fall and I love to create items to decorate my house for the season.  This month I created a little scarecrow shelf sitter. This easy scarecrow can sit among the pumpkins and other fall decorations. He's easy enough for any age to make with adult supervision on the glue gun.

Scarecrow Shelf Sitter

This scarecrow uses a plaid burlap ribbon from Gwen Studios, which is perfect for fall designs.

Here are the materials I used:

3" terra cotta pot

1 3/4" wood ball knob (this has a flat side)

Gwen Studios 1" burlap ribbon

4" circle of burlap for the hat

Twine

Sewing needle and tan thread

Hot glue, white glue

Wiggle eyes

Acrylic paint for the pot and features (or permanent pens for face), paintbrush

Craft wire (optional)

Instructions:

Paint the pot and let dry. 

Cut lengths of ribbon for legs and arms (4 - 6" pieces and 4 - 3" pieces).  Cut twine to be glued between the ribbon lengths (12 - 7" pieces for the legs and 12 - 4" pieces for the arms.)

Lay 6 pieces of twine on a ribbon and glue the other ribbon on top sandwiching the twine between the ribbons.  If desired, add a matching length of craft wire for more poseability.

Glue a length of ribbon around the lip of the pot.  Pull up the top wire of the ribbon to gather and fit the lip and glue.  Glue a patch to the front.

For the head, glue wiggle eyes in the center of the ball.  Glue short pieces of twine on for the hair.  Trim and fringe hair. Add more features with pens or paint.

For the hat, loosely sew a 1 12" circle with the tan thread in the center of the burlap circle.  Pull up the ends of the thread to create a crown for the hat.  Tie off and trim. Glue a patch to the brim of the hat.

Hot glue the head to the bottom of the pot.  Hot glue the arm edge next to the head.  Hot glue the legs inside the pot.

Here's the scarecrow with the arms and legs, hair and hat.

Cut small lengths of twine and fray one end.  Glue the unfrayed ends under the head.

The burlap ribbon comes in several colors.  Here is a link:

Burlap ribbon from WalMart

For more fall designs with Gwen Studios ribbon, head over to the Designer Crafts Connection site.

Disclaimer:  I am on the Gwen Studios design team and receive their beautiful ribbons for use in my design work.

Fall Designs in Plastic Canvas

 Hi folks!

Fall is one of my favorite times of year and I love to design in fall colors.  Here are a couple of fall and harvest designs that I created for Herrschners.

This is another porch board:

Happy Fall Porch Board

And, here is a view through a window of an apple orchard and an old red pickup:

Apple Harvest Wall Hanging

You can find these kits now on the Herrschners website under plastic canvas.

Back to School Wreath

 Welcome!

For the Back to School theme for Gwen Studios, I've chosen to make a wreath. They make great gifts and I'm sure the kids would have fun creating a special one for their teacher.

I chose a black canvas from a dollar store for my background and some wood letters to spell "Back to School". You could spell the teacher's name or welcome also.

I painted the letters with rainbow colors.  The number of letters for Back to School worked perfectly.  You could also paint them white.

I glued lengths of paint sticks around the edges of the canvas to make it look like a blackboard. 

A wire wreath form from the dollar store and Decorative Mesh from Joann's will form the base wreath.

I made deco mesh bows from 12" lengths of mesh by overlapping the ends, scrunching up the mesh across the overlap and tying them with black craft wire. Since I'd never worked with deco mesh, I watched a video to learn the technique.

I used one roll of deco mesh, which was 30 feet, and 10 more sections from the next roll.  Of course, you can add more bows to make a fuller wreath.

Then, I took 6-8" lengths of assorted Gwen Studios and made sprays to go in between the deco mesh.

I tied these into the wreath in between the deco mesh bows.

To attach the canvas to the wreath, I glued wire to the back and tied it into the wreath frame.  This will make it usable for another event like a birthday party.  

To find all the colorful Gwen Studios ribbon to make your own wreath, try these sources. I've listed a representative link for all the ribbons I used, but each source has these types of ribbon.

Michaels

Sweet Shop ribbon

Joann.com

Print and solid 3/8" grosgrain

WalMart.com

Wide Satin Ribbon

And, you can also search Amazon for Gwen Studios ribbon.  

For more ribbon ideas for Back to School, check out the Designer Crafts Connection.

Designer Crafts Connection