Countdown to Halloween - Oct. 24 - Carving Faux Pumpkins

Bruce sent me some photos of his pumpkin carving on faux pumpkins--from Funkins to those he has purchased at Michael's. The key he says to carving, is to use a hot knife as it will carve like slicing through butter! 

 

 

 

Jenn:)

Countdown to Halloween - Oct. 21- Pumpkin Bucket Lanterns

Hanging Lanterns are a great way to decorate for Halloween be it vintage lanterns of metal or paper or plastic buckets! A very inexpensive way to create lanterns which I stole from Ronda at Old Fashion Halloween several years ago after seeing it on her blog, is to take the $1 plastic orange pumpkins and add battery operated tea lights or you could also use bundled string lights for a much brighter effect. I add about 3 or 4 of the tea lights to each one. In the image below from my Sleepy Hollow party several years ago, I set them out around the walkway and you can see them glowing in the background. This year I'm hanging them from garden stake hooks which line the curving driveway on up to the porch and also I've hung them in the trees out front--they look so festive swaying in the breeze and add a great pop of color during the day. I have 2 taller garden shepherd's hooks in the yard that I'm hanging my gigantic orange pumpkins buckets I got at Target this year.

Jenn:)

Oct. 25 - Day 25: Crafty Halloween Ideas #8

Crafty Halloween Ideas #8 -
Decoupage Pumpkins

I decided to do a crafty decoupage pumpkin for my Nancy Drew Halloween party. Part of my decor is black/white mostly so the multi pic endpapers from the Nancy Drew books worked perfectly. It's kind of got a Toile look to it. I think I'm going to paint the stem black tomorrow once it finishes drying overnight.

Materials:

I purchased all of these items at Michaels.

Faux pumpkins
Modge Podge
Foam Brush
Images

Instructions:

Set up your table with something the pumpkin (and you) won't stick to--I used plastic. Also, cut out your images first so you'll have them ready to go assembly line once you start. Tip: Take a bowl to set your pumpkin in to work on as this makes it easier to work with. I covered my bowl with some saran wrap to keep the modge podge off it. Another Tip: Have your images printed at the copy shop--so the ink won't bleed as it will on an ink jet printer. If you have some special spray then you can print your own and use the spray to keep the ink from running.

Begin placing your images on the pumpkin--I started out at the bottom and worked my way up. You can brush the pumpkin with modge podge and then place the image but I found it easier to paint it on the bottom of the paper and then apply. I also wore some painters gloves so I wouldn't have to spend half the night scraping modge podge off my hands.

As you work it will go quickly. Sometimes you have to trim things certain ways to make it fit better--I find smaller pieces work better on surfaces like this that aren't flat.

Do about half the pumpkin at one time and then let it dry and then do the other side. I printed images for the earlier version of these endpapers with the 22 little scenes like the blue multi pic endpapers but didn't get a chance to start the second pumpkin.

It was a pretty easy project to do--you can't really mess up this kind of project! I completed mine while watching Dancing with the Stars and Castle with wait times for drying so it wasn't too time consuming.

Jenn:)

Crafty Halloween Ideas #2

Crafty Halloween Ideas #2 - Cameo Pumpkins

Here's a pumpkin project you might like--it's from a feature in the October 1998 issue of Martha Stewart Living. I'll be highlighting some of my favorite ideas from her past October issues throughout the month.

I love silhouettes and cameos so this particular project stood out to me. I haven't tried it myself, but may attempt to do so this year for my particular theme. With faux pumpkins so I can keep them. But I think they look really great carved into these real pumpkins and I love the stems on them.

Cut out a desired cameo style silhouette at the right size for your pumpkin and use it as a stencil to draw the outline onto your pumpkin-either carve it out or carve away from it as shown above.

Jenn:)