Straw Folk, Made to Order, Original Raggedy Scarecrow

Description

🎨 DESIGN YOUR CHARACTER

You can choose your scarecrow’s:

• Male, female or neutral character style
• Preferred clothing colours
• Button or stitched eyes
• Wide, sleepy, friendly or overhanging eyelids
• Long lashes, stitched glasses or simple eye details
• Traditional triangle, long fabric or sculpted nose
• Happy, grumpy, sleepy, surprised, spooky or wonderfully wonky expression
• Traditional, colourful, rustic, cottage-garden or Halloween-inspired appearance

You are welcome to combine different features or give me a general idea and allow me to create a surprise character for you.

Please add your preferences to the Etsy personalisation box when ordering.

If you don’t have strong preferences, simply write **“Raggedy surprise”** and I will design somebody completely unique.

Because every character is made using reclaimed materials, exact colours, prints, buttons, sack markings and clothing cannot be guaranteed.

Your choices will guide the overall design while allowing each scarecrow to retain their own one-of-a-kind Raggedy personality.

🧵 USING YOUR OWN SPECIAL FABRIC

Your scarecrow can also be made using suitable fabric or clothing supplied by you.

This might include a loved one’s old shirt, jacket, dress, apron, tie or another meaningful textile, rather like a traditional memory bear, but transformed into a full-size garden scarecrow.

Please contact me before ordering if you would like to supply your own material.

We can discuss whether the fabric is suitable, how it could be incorporated and where it should be sent.

🌾 IMPORTANT: MADE TO ORDER

This is a made-to-order listing.

The photographs show examples of previously created Raggedy scarecrows and are intended to demonstrate the different characters, materials and facial features available.

You will not receive one of the exact scarecrows photographed.

Your own character will be individually designed and handmade following the preferences supplied with your order.

Please allow approximately three weeks for your scarecrow kit to be handmade before dispatch.

If you require your scarecrow for a particular birthday, event, garden show or Halloween date, please contact me before ordering.

🌾 WHAT’S INCLUDED

• Individually designed and handmade fabric scarecrow head
• Your chosen hand-stitched facial features
• Integrated elastic loops for adding straw or hay hair
• Full set of carefully selected scarecrow clothing
• Handmade or carefully sourced scarecrow hat
• Twine for attaching your scarecrow securely to their frame
• Illustrated Official Raggedy Scarecrow certificate
• Little emergency repair kit
• Illustrated step-by-step assembly guide

When assembled on the recommended frame, your scarecrow will stand approximately 6ft tall.

The finished height may vary slightly depending on the wooden frame you create.

🪵 YOU WILL NEED

• Straw or hay
• Two wooden battens, sturdy stakes or suitable garden canes
• Nails or screws to create the cross-shaped frame
• Approximately 20 saved carrier bags or reusable plastic bags to stuff the head
• A hammer or screwdriver suitable for your chosen frame

Please note: the wooden frame, tools and straw or hay are NOT included.

Each head takes approximately 20 carrier bags to fill, so start saving them from the time you order! It’s a useful way to reuse the bags hiding in cupboards and give them another purpose instead of purchasing new stuffing.

♻️

Assembly takes approximately 30 minutes.

✂️ HANDMADE FROM FORGOTTEN THINGS

Every Raggedy scarecrow is individually made by hand using reclaimed fabrics, recycled materials, vintage finds, charity-shop clothing and forgotten textiles that deserve another adventure.

And handmade really does mean handmade.

These scarecrows aren’t designed to look perfectly uniform or factory-made—they’re perfectly wonky and proud of it!

You may spot visible stitches, mismatched fabrics, patches, frayed edges, different textures and quirky little imperfections.

These details aren’t faults; they are part of the character and charm of a genuinely handmade Raggedy scarecrow.

Clothing, buttons, fabric patterns, colours and other details will naturally vary according to the reclaimed materials available.

Every character will be completely individual.

Rather than arriving as a mass-produced finished garden ornament, your scarecrow arrives as a flat-packed character kit, ready for you to stuff, build and give the final touches to their personality.

🌦️ LIVING OUTDOORS

Raggedy scarecrows are designed for gardens, allotments, vegetable patches, community gardens, outdoor displays and seasonal events.

As with any character made from reclaimed textiles, sunshine and rain will naturally weather and fade the materials over time.

This simply adds another chapter to their Raggedy story.

Sheltering your scarecrow during severe weather and storing them somewhere dry over winter will help preserve the hand-stitched features and allow them to enjoy many more garden adventures.

Emily Archer and The Raggedys is a member of The British Toy Makers Guild.

All the items sold in our shop are certified by The Guild.

Please note that advertised items are considered a collective piece and not a toy appropriate for young children.

All of my designs listed under The Raggedys brand name, or advertised by Emily Archer are supported by ACID through their Copyright & Design Databank.

All copyright, design rights and intellectual property rights existing in my designs and products and in the images, text and design of my website / marketing material are and will remain the property of The Raggedys and Emily Archer.

I will treat any infringement of these rights seriously.