Decorating a scarecrow Flea Market gardening style is a Halloween tradition. Taking unused items and giving them new life is fun especially with a story behind it. Here is Ammie Peter‘s story of her Old Mater truck and a few more tales:
“It’s a 1955 Willys Jeep Truck we got from a dear friend of ours who is a traveling carnival owner…Ammie says.
’Old Mater,’ as we call him, has been sitting in my yard since spring …I can’t plant him with flowers because old mater still gets up and goes!”
“From the moment she saw him, my 4 year old ‘Nana baby,’ my granddaughter, has called him ‘Mater,’ from the cartoon movie, Cars. The old tow truck in the movie is named ‘Tow Mater’ and this jeep resembles him.”
“Our scarecrow ‘Farmer Bobby Ray,’ named from the old sign laying in the back of the Jeep when we brought him home, is made from an old foam pumpkin for his face with an old hillbilly hat, all bought at yard sales, his arms are made from a noodle those swim noodles, you know?”
“I took a lacrosse boot box that was laying in the truck to use as his body and put my hubby shirt over the box… Sadly, Farmer Bobby Ray has no legs…”
I decorated the truck with all kinds of yard sales finds…from the containers the plants are sitting in (all plants bought at Lowe’s for 2$ on discount), to the old tin pumpkin and old milk can. The only mechanical thing the truck needs is brakes! We hope to get those on so I can do a Christmas theme in the back of Old Mater and drive him in our hometown Christmas parade this year! .. Someday, we hope to restore the truck completely but until then I will give it life by decorating. ~~Ammie Peters
Haunting and hovering characters watching over the garden are a tradition, even if they are only scaring crows. You may want to make one of these garden people to watch over yours.
“Here’s my garden lady, says Louise Yunck, inspired by the great junk artist Jim Shores. Her name is Weezy. Her are arms and legs are a golf ball retriever that I bought for $1 two yrs ago. I didn’t know what it was, but it was cheap, metal and looked like hand! The feet are iron shoe molds in roller skates. Her hat is the base of a metal lazy Susan with the coffee basket glued on.
Her ears are part of some curtain tie backs. Her earrings are lead crystals from a lamp. Her eyes are door knobs. The shoulders are the top of the coffee basket cut in half. I had much bigger shoulder in my plans but they turned into a nightmare and I gave up. Her 40s sunglasses are from my mom. Her ring is my Aries ring from high school. Her, ahem, bosom, is jello molds.
Tammy Blair-Lack says, “Our scarecrow’s head and hat are one piece, it was a chicken feeder. A good friend of mine bought it at an auction in Kansas and gave it to me for my birthday.”
Jim is a self-taught artist from Rome, GA. He creates sculpture, assemblage and environmental art from found objects.
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These are all so cute and many ideas as is or mix and match. The shovel head "Sal" mixed with danc'n leg are going to be my quick inspiration for this year. Enjoy all your posts. Keep up the good work or should I say play.