In many regions, fall is nearly over. That is, most of what there was to fall, has fallen. Now comes the job of gathering together all those dead leaves. Kids love to rake leaves into a big pile for jumping into, moms and dads with gardens might put them in the composter, others bag them up for the day they pick up the yard waste and in some communities you can still burn leaves.

But if you want to keep the kids busy outdoors in the fresh fall air, another idea is to use the leaves to make a scarecrow. The materials needed for the main body are simple:

* An old pair of pants or overalls, jeans or strong material

* An old button-down shirt, plaid flannel is traditional but any cotton shirt will do

* Some elastic bands

* Safety Pins

* Old boots or shoes

Wind elastic bands around the ends of both pant legs and at the cuffs of the shirt sleeves. Have the kids fill the pants with leaves. When the pants are stuffed full, tuck the shirt tails into the pants and attach with safety pins. Use at least two or three front and back and one on each side to keep your man together. Then they can start stuffing the shirt through the neckhole.

The head can be done a few ways. Some use a pumpkin for a head, but it may lack support. Another way is to draw a face on a pillowcase and gather it around a medium size air-filled play ball. This year the kids and I stuffed a plastic shopping bag with leaves and tied it up. We used a stick for support, long enough to go down the shirt and into the bag to hold it straight up, a neck if you will. Then we used a halloween mask fitted over the bag for the head and face. Ours is a jack o’lantern mask but any mask will do. Imagine how scary having Frankenstein sitting on the porch will be for the trick or treaters.

After the main construction, you can get creative with the shoes and other accessories. Your scarecrow can even sit in a chair holding the bowl of Halloween candy. Or use sticks to pose him standing in the yard. Put stuffed gloves on the ends of the shirtsleeves to give him hands. Let the kids be creative in making the scariest scarecrow in the neighborhood.

Have a happy and safe Halloween.

The picture we ended up with in the last post could, in fact, be used as a template. With a little more simplification, however, we will make the task of transferring it to the pumpkin or T-shirt that much easier. To begin with, we could get rid of the white around the image as it is no longer needed.

To do this we take the lasso tool and click through the black surrounding the face until we have circled the entire face. Now, go to Selections in the menu and click on Invert. This changes the selection so that only the outer part of the image is selected. It is an easy matter now to take the fill tool and fill the selection with black - just a click will do it.

We now have a template of the original picture. But if we can change the colors around so that the black is white and vice versa, transferring the image to the final surface will be a lot easier. Go to Colors in the menu and choose Negative Image. Suddenly we are presented with a negative of our template and the holes to be cut are in black. It is harder to see the face, but easier to envisage the holes now that they are black.

All that remains to be done is to print out the file, attach it to the pumpkin and start pricking through around the edges of the shapes to give a guideline for the cutting out. I am assuming that you already know how to carve a pumpkin - it is hardly rocket science, after all. For a design as complex as the one we are attempting, it is best to buy a set of pumpkin carving tools; they are very cheap but so much better than a kitchen knife for cutting fine detail.

Once the carving is done, all that remains is to place a lantern inside the pumpkin, turn off the lights and marvel at your creation!

In the last post, we ended up with a simplified black and white photograph still too complex to form a template. Now the task becomes more difficult - we are going to select certain areas to cut out and paste into a blank new image file. And selecting them is the hardest task confronting us - it requires good mouse control (if you have a graphics tablet you may now laugh) and patience.

Amongst all the icons for tools there is one that looks like a lasso - click on it and then right-click. This will bring up a list of options with Toolbars near the bottom. Click on this and a little window will pop up with options applicable to the lasso tool. Under Selection type, choose Point to Point. When you move the cursor back over the photo, it will change to a crosshair and we’re ready to start selecting.

Choose a large area to begin outlining - about three or four main ones will do as we will join them together again later. For instance, I outlined the left side of Herman’s face and his hair to begin with. Outlining is done by clicking where you want to start to cut a piece out, following the edge of the area, clicking each time you change direction (this anchors the line in that spot and allows you to draw the next section). Simplify shapes as you go - there is no need to follow every hair and wrinkle. Outline the entire shape to be cut out and, when you reach your start point again, right-click. PSP will join the lines for you to complete the outline.

Copy the selection to the pasteboard (Ctrl + C) and paste it into a new file by choosing Edit in the menu, then Paste and Paste as New Selection. Move the pasted shape to the correct position, allowing plenty of room for later selections to be positioned. Looks a bit scruffy, doesn’t it? Bits of white have been selected as well as the black, that’s the problem. Fill the whole shape with black by using the fill tool (the bucket icon in the toolbar).

Then repeat the process with the remaining segments of the photograph. With Herman, I cut out the right side of his face next and then a weird shape around his eyes and nose, finally adding the eyes themselves and his mouth as separate small selections.

Now we need to make sure that pieces aren’t going to fall out when cut and that means connecting everything around the holes we are going to carve (the white pieces will be the holes). The mouth, for instance, is floating out there without visible means of support. Go to Layers in the menu and choose Merge, Merge All. This is so that we can draw on all areas of the picture. Now select the pencil tool and draw lines to connect those pieces that are unsupported, using the natural lines and shadows in the original photo as your guide to where they would most naturally be.

You should now have the makings of a very effective template. There are a few more steps yet but I will leave those until the next post.

A corn husk doll is a traditional doll made by Native American children and also children of Colonial families in early America. No facial features are painted on the doll, also called the “faceless” doll.

The Native American legend says that the Creator made the first corn husk doll to help watch children while the parents were busy gathering food and doing other adult activities. The doll had a beautiful face and the power to walk and talk. One day after a rain, the doll saw her reflection in the water. She was so beautiful that she spent all the day gazing at her reflection in that pool of water instead of caring for the children and the Creator punished her by taking away her face and her ability to walk and talk.

To make your corn husk doll you will need cleaned and dried cornhusks. You can save your own the next time you buy corn from the farmstand and dry them in the sun or you can purchase them at craft stores.

You will also need:

*Twine or string
*Scissors
*Pipe Cleaners (optional)

1. Soak the dried cornhusks in warm water until they are bendable and soft.

2. Take six husks and arrange them with all the tips at one end and all the large ends at the other. Tie a string around them a about an inch from the top of the large ends.

3. Trim the large ends with scissors to make them straight and even.

4. Holding the cornhusks by the knotted end, turn down the corn husks over the knot to form the head.

5. Tie another length of string at the “neck”.

6. For the arms, take a pipe cleaner and roll another of your husks around it to make the arms. Tie the ends with string at the “wrists”. This will make the arms poseable. An alternative method is to take three strips of husk and braid them to make the arms.

7. Slide the arms between the husks under the neck knot.

8. Tie another string below the arms for the waist.

9. Take two thinner husks and tie criss-crossed across the chest and back and tie at the waist to form shoulders.

10. If this is a boy doll, divide the husks hanging down from the waist into two and tie with small strips of husk at the ankles, knees and hips to form legs. You can use pipe cleaner here too, to make the legs poseable.

- or-

If this is a girl doll, take some more husks and tie them at the waist to form a full skirt.

11. Tie small strips of husk around the neck and waist to cover the strings.