Something about the fall majorly put me in a mood to bake and do crafts, and since these cool nights and mornings are finally making it feel like fall has come to Greenville, so I wanted to make our apartment look a little more festive. But I didn’t want to just buy some super-generic traditional decorations…not that I have anything against them, I just figure I have plenty of time to have those once I have a house and kids. So for now, I wanted to do something a little more young and fun that I could make myself. I saw these super cute pumpkins black and white patterned pumpkins in a botique in downtown Greenville, and I thought they looked really unique. So I checked out some different craft blogs online, and I stumbled across a post about making decoupage pumpkin and thought that would be perfect. I’m a huge fan of Mod Podge, I used to use it all the time when I was a kid to make decoupage crafts, so I was really excited to do this project. The supplies that I used were:
- Scrapbooking paper (I ended up using 1 sheet for the small pumpkin, and 1 1/2 sheets for the bigger pumpkin–there are so many fun patterns at most craft stores, I went with blue and brown patterns to match our apartment)
- Mod Podge (I used Matte, but there a bunch of different types, so you could experiment here)
- Clear spray acrylic
- Foam brush
- 2 Decorative Pumpkins (I really wanted just plain brown paper pumpkins, but I couldn’t find any that weren’t orange, so I just got those and they worked fine)
- Wired ribbon (optional)
I started by taking the scrapbooking paper and cutting it up in to small squares. Beginning at the top of the pumpkin, I started brushing it with the Mod Podge, and then sticking a square of paper on top and brushing over top of it with Mod Podge. I did this a few squares at a time until the entire pumpkin was covered in paper/Mod Podge. (This is takes quite awhile, so it’s a good thing to do while watching a movie or something!) After it was completely covered in squares of paper, I gave it another coat with the Mod Podge just to seal it, then let it dry over night.
The next day, I sprayed the pumpkins with the clear acrylic, and this needs to be done outside if possible, as the acrylic smell is really strong.
I let the pumpkins dry for another day, then I used the wired ribbon to put bows around the stems of the pumpkins to help give them that little something extra. I’m really happy with how they turned out!
