Make this adorable popsicle stick scarecrow craft in minutes using popsicle sticks, paper, yarn, and a black marker! They’re simple to make and such a cute fall craft that kids will love to make to celebrate the fall season!
After making a bunch of Halloween popsicle stick crafts last year (like this popsicle stick vampire craft and this popsicle bat), I had a request this year for a more fall themed craft to use for a fall festival.
So here you go – a craft stick scarecrow!
I love using popsicle sticks (aka craft sticks) for crafts because they’re versatile, easy to glue together, and easy for little hands to hold and manipulate.
Pretty much everyone can pick up a popsicle stick craft!
Anyway, this is one of the easiest fall crafts you can make AND one of the easiest ones to setup, which is why it’s the perfect choice for fall parties, fall festivals, and just an afternoon of fall fun with your kids.
Why You’ll Love This Craft
- Inexpensive – I share a lot of popsicle stick crafts because small popsicle sticks are cheap. You can buy a huge box of them (like this one) on Amazon and it’ll last you an entire year. And the other items are maybe even cheaper.
- Simple – there’s not a lot to this craft but that doesn’t keep it from being cute! It’s a great way to let kids feel like they’re being crafty without a huge mess and tears because the craft doesn’t turn out.
- Easy to customize – let kids choose their craft supplies and colors to make the scarecrow look how they want. I used yellow yarn but if you provide multiple colors, they could choose yellow, orange, red, brown, or even black! Same with the paint colors – let them get creative and make their own adorable scarecrows.
Supplies
Supply Notes
Paint – if you’re doing this with younger kids (or even kids of all ages), I recommend using washable paint. Using acrylic paint with little kids is a great way to ruin some clothes. That being said, if the kids doing these kids crafts are older, acrylic craft paint does dry faster. Choose whatever paint colors you want kids to be able to use to paint the scarecrow’s hat and brim of the hat.
Hot glue gun – I recommend gluing the popsicle sticks together ahead of time using a glue gun and then letting kids paint them and put the other things together. Or you can have someone manning the glue gun station, helping kids to use the glue gun (or just gluing it for them). Hot glue is the best way I’ve found to get popsicle sticks to stick together quickly.
Another option would be to do the gluing early, take a break while it dries, and finish the craft after. If you’re doing this, you should be able use any sort of actual craft glue, tacky glue, etc. (but not gluesticks). You’ll also want something like Elmer’s glue to attach the yarn and eyes.
Yarn – I personally used yellow yarn but any color works. This is where this easy fall craft gets fun as kids get to choose how to customize their scarecrow.
Wooden craft sticks – I use the regular (not jumbo) size of craft sticks. This pack gives you a ton of popsicle sticks for a reasonable price.
Paper – if you want to make the eyes out of paper like I did, I recommend two colors of construction paper or colored card stock. If you want to skip the cutting and paper portion, you can always use large googly eyes instead. I mean who doesn’t love wiggle eyes??
If you want to use paper, you’ll need to provide orange construction paper, (or yellow paper), black, and white paper for the eyes and nose. Oh and if you don’t want to do paper (the cheapest option), you could easily do this with craft foam, felt, or any other flat craft material as well!
Black marker – I used black marker to make the mouth simple but if you want to get real crafty, you could provide black paint and paint on the mouth instead.
Note!
You’ll also need scissors and a paint brush for this craft. I recommend a paint brush that is easy to coat things, not a tiny little one that’s better for detailing. This will help the paint portion of this craft go faster.
How to make this scarecrow craft
This fun craft is actually super simple to make. I’m going to walk you through the prep to do this with a classroom or kids plus how to make the actual craft. And then…happy crafting!
1 – gather supplies
Start by gathering your supplies. You’ll want to make sure that you have enough supplies for everyone to have access to their own piece of paper, craft sticks, and yarn pieces ideally.
Tip!
If you’re doing this with a class or for a fall festival, I recommend making zipper top bags full of the simple supplies kids will need to make the craft (popsicle sticks, pieces of paper, and eyes (if using them). Then have craft equipment like scissors, glue, and paint that everyone shares. This helps to make sure they have all of the starting pieces they need and avoids someone totally messing up the craft because they lost their yarn or only painted four popsicle sticks.
Once the supplies are together, it’s time to get started on the actual craft!
2 – Start with the Popsicle Sticks
Start by gluing seven of the popsicle sticks together all in one line. You can do this with hot glue or like I mentioned above, if you have time to allow them to dry, do it with another type of glue.
Tip!
If you want the popsicle sticks to be even sturdier, cut one of them in half and glue it across the other popsicle sticks. This gives them an additional level of support that will help protect these little scarecrows in case they get dropped or smashed.
Once the glue has dried, draw a diagonal slant from the upper right to the lower left corner. The line doesn’t have to be exactly straight, it’s just to remind you which side of the popsicle sticks to paint. It also helps kids to have a guide on where to paint.
And honestly, it’s optional, but I find it helpful.
Once the line is drawn, paint the line and all of the popsicle sticks above the line orange (or whatever color they choose). You only need to paint one side.
Once they’re all painted, set it aside to allow the paint to dry.
Paint the leftover popsicle stick orange (or the matching color) and let it dry.
Once the paint has dried on both popsicle sticks, glue the popsicle sticks together with the single popsicle stick over the line you drew diagonally to create the hat brim. This is why the diagonal lines don’t have to be perfect – it’ll be covered anyway!
This is the perfect time to let kids use regular glue if you want or you can use hot glue if in a hurry.
3- Make the Face
The next step is to make the eyes. If you’re planning to use google eyes, feel free to skip this step and move onto the next!
If you’re making the eyes for this simple scarecrow craft, cut out two circles of white paper and then two circles of black paper, above half the size of the white paper.
Glue the eyes together with the smaller black circle right in the middle of the white one to create the eyes.
After the eyes are dried, glue them onto the popsicle sticks. This is your craft so feel free to make the eyes look how you want and they don’t have to be placed in the perfect position! You could even make the black circles not actually circles but rather ovals!
For the nose, cut a small triangle out of the orange paper and glue it onto the popsicle sticks right underneath the eyes. Then glue it onto the popsicle sticks right under the eyes.
Last but not least, use a black marker to draw a smile on the scarecrow right underneath the nose. Kids can get creative here and use a black Sharpie to make any sort of mouth they want!
4 – Finish the Scarecrow
To finish the scarecrow, fold the yarn and cut into pieces to make the scarecrow’s hair.
Glue it to the back of the scarecrow and you’ll have the cutest little scarecrow! You could also do this with gold pipe cleaners if you’d rather not use yarn, but I like the look of the yarn for the hair!
Isn’t this just the perfect craft for fall? This would be fun to do with one of these other fall art activities to use up leftover paint and craft sticks! Or with these fall playdough mats that include fall objects like scarecrows and pumpkins!
Craft FAQs
Popsicle sticks won’t stay together without glue. You need to glue them with hot glue, craft tacky glue, or another type of glue to hold them together. Make sure to plan enough time in your craft day to allow for drying time if you’re not using hot glue.
While you can use any size of popsicle sticks, I used just regular 4.5 inch popsicle sticks, like the ones you’d actually get in popsicle sticks. If you’d prefer to use jumbo popsicle sticks, I recommend cutting it down to four or five popsicle sticks instead of seven.
More Fun Fall Ideas
Try out one of these other fun fall ideas for the ultimate fall celebration! You could really pick any of the items on this fall bucket list, but these are some of our favorites!
- Fall scavenger hunt – three different types of fall scavenger hunts for any age!
- Fall party games – 20+ fun ideas of games to play inspired by the fall season!
- Apple craft – another fun popsicle stick craft with a fall theme!
- Pumpkin worksheets – printable activities inspired by all of the pumpkins in the fall! Six different options to work for any age!
- Pumpkin patch craft – a cute craft you can make with just an apple!
Popsicle Stick Scarecrow Craft
Ingredients
- 9 4.5" popsicle sticks
- 1 bottle craft paint Orange or red and yellow
- 1 piece white construction paper
- 1 piece black construction paper Orange
- 1 piece orange construction paper
- 1 piece yarn yellow, orange, red, or brown
Instructions
- Start by gluing seven of the popsicle sticks together all in one line. You can do this with hot glue or like I mentioned above, if you have time to allow them to dry, do it with another type of glue. Cut one popsicle stick in half and glue it to the back of the other popsicle sticks, straight across, for support.9 4.5" popsicle sticks
- Once the glue has dried, draw a diagonal slant from the upper right to the lower left corner.1 bottle craft paint
- Once the line is drawn, paint the line and all of the popsicle sticks above the line orange (or whatever color they choose). And paint the single popsicle stick leftover orange as well.
- Once the paint has dried on both popsicle sticks, glue the popsicle sticks together with the single popsicle stick over the line you drew diagonally to create the hat brim.
- Cut out two circles of white paper and then two circles of black paper, above half the size of the white paper.1 piece white construction paper, 1 piece black construction paper
- Glue the eyes together with the smaller black circle right in the middle of the white one to create the eyes. Then glue onto the popsicle sticks to be eyes.
- For the nose, cut a small triangle out of the orange paper and glue it onto the popsicle sticks right underneath the eyes.1 piece orange construction paper
- Finish the face by using a black marker to draw a smile on the scarecrow right underneath the nose.
- To finish the scarecrow, fold the yarn and cut into pieces to make the scarecrow’s hair. Glue it to the back of the scarecrow and shape it however you want the scarecrow's hair.1 piece yarn
Joy Schaub says
Thank you so much for sharing all your wonderful, creative ideas! I look forward to your e-mails!