Pumpkin Decorating Last Weekend

We decorated pumpkins last weekend and one of my Pinterest dreams came true!

Avery picked the pumpkins we were going to decorate. He decided to paint two basketball players on one and I would decorate the other two.

I have been waiting 3 years to decorate pumpkins based on some Pinterest inspiration – one turned out and the other….well, let’s just say it wasn’t what I had imagined.

We had some Halloween music playing and Avery painted away. Here is his pumpkin – he painted Wilt Chamberlain on one side and Magic Johnson on the other side. So cute!

While Avery painted, I started to glue doilies on the smaller pumpkin. I used clear school glue and and layered them, first doing a layer of white doilies and then a layer of gold doilies. I should’ve known at this point that it wasn’t going to turn out all that great.

The paper on the white doilies didn’t dry like I had hoped – the glue dried clear but the paper stayed looking blotchy like this. The gold ones didn’t look like that when they dried so I think using only the gold doilies would’ve been much better. Mod Podge also would’ve been a good idea I think instead of the glue – easier to brush on.

Not pretty – it was a fail for me.

My win and Pinterest dream come true was the white pumpkin with the leaves. It turned out so pretty!!

I collected a bunch of leaves from our front yard in different shapes and colours the day before. The only thing I would change is maybe collecting the leaves that day instead so they didn’t dry out too much – it would’ve been easier to glue them. But it still turned out amazing!

I had glue all over my hands so I couldn’t document the whole process but I laid out the leaves on the table in the pattern I wanted. I brushed glue on the pumpkin and pressed on the first set of leaves which were the longer green and yellow leaves. I brushed on some more glue and added the red leaves, then brushed on more glue and added the brown leaves. So it was 3 “stages” of layering on the leaves. I didn’t let each layer dry in between – I just kept adding the layers and then set it outside to dry.

I would definitely do the pumpkin with the leaves again and it could be done with so many different patterns. You could also add in wildflowers, grasses, twigs, etc. So many possibilities! Can’t wait to do this one again next year!