"Pin"spired Popsicle Stick Scarecrows

Are you enjoying Kids' Activity Week so far?  I just love seeing all the fantastic ideas for fun things to do with the kiddos {or to do yourself while they're napping...heehee}.

Anyway, in keeping with the theme, here's yet another Fall themed project Little Crafter and I whipped up.

While browsing through some kid-centered link parties, this image caught my eye.  Well, actually it caught the eye of Little Crafter first, who was sitting on my lap and looking at the pictures with me.

Mandi, aka the Boredom Busting Mommy, made these cute scarecrows with her equally cute sons.  Little Crafter took one look, pointed at the picture, and declared, "I want to make dat.  Today, Mommy.  I want to make it right now."   Unfortunately for him, we had other plans for the day, but I did the next best thing.  Pinned it.  Later, I went back and checked out Mandi's great step by step photos of her sons creating their masterpieces.  The next day, we gathered our supplies and made our own.

POPSICLE STICK SCARECROW MAGNETS

You'll need:

Popsicle sticks {ours are the miniature kind, and took 8 per scarecrow}

Craft foam

Adhesive foam shapes or stickers

Pipe cleaners

Googly Eyes

Pom-Poms

Permanent Marker

Craft glue

Scissors

Magnetic tape or buttons

We actually had every last one of these things in the art room already...I didn't have to buy a single thing to make these little guys!  That's my kind of craft.  The eyes, pipe cleaners, and pom-poms all came from our good old Ultimate Fuzzy Kit, which, along with the magentic buttons, were provided by Craftprojectideas.com.  I have to say, that Ultimate Fuzzy Kit has been my our absolute favorite of all the fun supplies we received because it's just so multi-purpose!  We've used it for four separate projects already and it contains the kind of things you always want to have on hand if you're crafting with little ones.

Anyway, here's what to do:

STEP 1: Line up 6 popsicle sticks vertically and glue two more sticks across them horizontally to hold them together.

STEP 2: Cut out hat shape from craft foam, decorate, and glue in place.

STEP 3: Cut pipecleaners for hair, glue in place.

STEP 4: Decorate face as desired.

STEP 5: Attach magnet.

They're quick and easy and even the littlest hands can help {although I confess we had a meltdown when we were making the second one...after asking him three times to glue the eyes on and getting no cooperation, I put them in place, which caused colossal tears along with, "I wanted to glue the eyes, Mommy, I wanted to do it...Waaaaaah....IIIIII wanted to glue the eyyyyyes, Momm-eeeeeeeeeeeeee!"}  Note to self: Do not attempt to craft ten minutes before naptime.

Meltdown aside, it really was a fun project and I think they turned out pretty darn cute!  Thanks, Mandi, for the inspiration.  Now, let's see all the cute kiddo projects you have up your sleeve!

Oh, and don't forget to enter the Craftprojectideas giveaway, going on now, to win a Halloween Melty Bead Kit!  You're gonna love it!