Southwestern Scarecrow

How to create a scary 9 ft. structure for Halloween.

A few years back I bought a cow skull. I decided to do a mirror mosaic on it. This was my first attempt at mosaic work so it wasn't really good enough to hang inside or to sell. So it became the head of my scarecrow.

This structure is 1 inch PVC pipe with X connectors. There is an 8 1/2 steel pipe running inside the PVC pipe for strength and stability. NOTE: only the PVC pipe is cemented into the bucket with the steel pipe slid inside of it. I need to disassemble and reassemble on site.

My mom finds and saves twisted branches for me to use in my odd projects such as this one. I duct taped them to the PVC making sure to not duct tape over my X connectors.

The "hands" you see here were the second failed attempt at making wings for my niece. The first failed attempt became a black widow spider. The hands are made of floral wire with aged plastic bones weaved into them. I also cut down the arm pipes to match the branch shoulders.

Here is the bottom section of PVC cemented into the bucket. The branches and the steel pipe are NOT cemented in.

Layers of cheese cloth cut poncho style were put on. Nice ghost effect, but that's not what I'm going for.

So one poncho was put on the long way and the second smaller on put on to cover the shoulders and arms.

Being a wire jewelry designer I was compelled to "spiral" the fingers...also I didn't want to get poked in the eye.

Starting with the "Monster Mud". 5 parts drywall compound and 1 part latex paint. I ended up adding a bit more latex paint and making it wetter because things tend to dry too fast in the desert.

Fully covered in monster mud.

I shredded the front cheese cloth because I like how the breeze made it flow.

Added a covering of creepy cloth and shredded the front into 4 strands...

...and the back into 4 strands.

Placed his head back on and painted the orange bucket black and gray. A little bit of wind and he comes alive!

Add LED eyes and you're done! He's even scarier in black and white.