Fun & Glitzy Holiday Pumpkin

Decorating pumpkins is such fun!  They're like round blank canvases ... ready and willing to be painted, covered and embellished in virtually any materials we impose on them.  

Materials used:

(Click on individual items below for additional info)

• Large pumpkin 
• Primer
• Disposable chip brush
• Stencil - frame design
• Pencil
• Patterned tissue paper (for center of frame)
• Black permanent marker
• Soft artist's paint brush
• White glue
• Gold metallic craft paint
• Tissue paper with shiny gold dots
• 2" Scallop circle paper punch

This beast is huge - at 30# and a diameter of 50", it's a LARGE canvas!   Hubby brought it home to me after a recent trip to Sam's Club.  He jostled it into the house, stating that it just looked like something I should have!   :)

My goal was to create a design that was not occasion specific and would be appropriate to display thru all the Fall/Winter holidays.  

Last year, I painted our Fall pumpkin with black chalkboard paint and it lasted for months and months - thru Fall, Christmas and into the following year.  It reached a point where we kept it just to see how long it would last - it turned into a personal challenge between us and "the pumpkin." LOL!  

Finally, in May we gave in and and tossed it.  The pumpkin had won - it was still intact and showed no signs of deteriorating.  

The first step to tackling this year's beast was to paint it with two coats of primer (Zinsser's Bulls Eye 1-2-3 White water based primer/sealer for all surfaces is my favorite).  Left the stem natural. I liked the primer so much that I didn't add a layer of regular paint over the white primer.

Next I used a stencil and a pencil to transfer a frame design to the pumpkin. 

 
Filled in the frame design with a black permanent marker and used gold metallic craft paint and a soft artist's brush to paint the natural and somewhat uneven stripes of the pumpkin along the deep ridges.  Did you know the ridges are actually called "ribs?"   

Then I filled the center of the frame design with gold/white patterned tissue paper.  Used the stencil and pencil again to transfer the inside of the frame design to the patterned tissue paper.  Cut it out with scissors and decoupaged to the pumpkin with regular white glue.

At this point, I really wanted to add gold dots in vertical rows, but knew it would take FOREVER to stencil or even dab paint dots on this beast.  

Fortunately, I found tissue paper in my stash that worked perfectly - white tissue with rows of shiny gold dots!  I cut long strips of single dots and decoupaged them to the pumpkin.  

Perfectly aligned rows of shiny gold dots - much better than I would have been able to do by painting.  Love when an "unplanned" plan comes together!  :)

For the monogram, I could have used my handy dandy Silhouette Cameo cutter, but this was such a simple monogram that I made my own quick stencil by printing the "S" on my laser printer, and cutting it out manually with scissors (old school!).   

After tracing the "S" onto the reverse side of the black contact paper, I manually cut the monogram out and attached it to the center of the frame design.

The last step was to use a scallop circle paper punch to create two scalloped circles to place on each side of the monogram.

One last tip:  I've used all types of craft glues and, have found that with many projects, just plain old white glue (the kind that you used in kindergarten) from the dollar store works just as well.  

And, that's it!  Such fun to let projects like this just evolve and change as you work your way through them.  Have you decorated your holiday pumpkin, or do you prefer carving?  Have a great day and I hope that you are experiencing Fall-ness in your area!

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