Fall Crafts

Ok, I made a couple of things today that I wanted to show you.

One of them is a remake of something I got at a yard sale this morning.

Here is the before picture.

Talk about recycling, it's made out of a tree branch! She had bought it at the Arts and Crafts Fair at Cedar Lakes. You can't tell in the picture very good, but there are two bird nests with birds and of course the ivy going down the limb. I thought it was a very good buy for just $3. (The Mountain State Arts and Crafts Fair is held every year during the 4th of July week at Cedar Lakes at Fairplain, WV. It was started in 1963 in celebration of West Virginia's centennial.)


Here it is stripped of the ivy and ready for me to redecorate for fall. I left the bird nests on them. I will just cover them up later.

Here is the new fall version of my tree limb.


Isn't it cute. After Thanksgiving I will redecorate it for winter. I think it was a pretty good investment, don't you?

NOW FOR MY SECOND CRAFT.

I had been wanting to make a clay pot scarecrow for a long time. I saw one at a yard sale a few weeks ago and they wanted $25 for it. I made it for a lot less.

Step one. Here is what is needed for this project. As you can see the large clay pots are old ones I had already. They are not in the best of shape, but I figured my scarecrow could be shabby chic. You can buy all new pots if you want.

Step two. Putting it together. I cut out a collar for his neck out of yellow and orange felt. And you probably already know this, but you cannot use hot glue on this project. It will not stick to clay pots. I used Alene's tacky glue, and it worked just fine.



Step three. I had a container of fall leaves I had bought at a yard sale a while back and I glued them where the clay pots came together. My pots weren't in very good shape and this helped to hide the imperfections. You could buy a bouquet of artificial fall leaves at Wal Mart and take the leaves off and glue them to the pots.

Step four. To me the arms were the hardest to do. I used 2 3/4" pots and strung twine through the holes in the bottom of the clay pots. Cut off a long piece of twine and tie large knots in it so the clay pots will not come off. Getting them tied in just the right place is a little tedious to do, but with a little trial and error you can do it.

Step Five. Here is the finished scarecrow. Put the twine that holds the arms over the large clay pot that the head rests on. Glue the small pot on top for the head, glue some raffia on the sides for his straw hair and glue the straw hat on top of that. Draw on a face with a black sharpie and finish decorating any way you want. On the very bottom I glued twine around and around about 6 or 7 times. I glued leaves here and there. You can use any size clay pots you want to use, just make sure the bottom three are the same size. Use a smaller one for the head and even smaller ones for the arms.

I hoped you enjoyed these projects. Just about everybody has clay pots sitting around and if you live near the woods you can go out and find dead branches on the ground.

Happy fall decorating!