Glitter Pumpkin Patch

Thursday, September 23, 2010

You know how I love projects that are easy to make, inexpensive, and glittery! This autumn pumpkin patch project fits neatly into all three categories. I made my pumpkins out of scraps of wood that I had lying around from another project gone bust.

Here is what you need:

• several chunks of wood that can stand up on their own
• Holographic Glitter Sample Pack
• White glue or Mod Podge
• a 1 1/4" long piece of 1/4" wide dowel rod for each pumpkin (I cut my dowel rod into pieces with a kitchen knife)
• green silk leaves (OK, these are not pumpkin leaves, but they were what I had, call it creative license)
• a drill with a 1/4" bit
• acrylic paint: orange and brown or green for stems
• flat paintbrush
• hot glue gun and glue

Try this:

1. Paint the wood pieces orange. You probably need a second coat. Let the first coat dry before painting the second. Also paint the stems. Let everything dry.

2. At the center top of each piece, drill a hole down into the wood. It does not have to be deep, 1/4" will do. Glue the stem into the hole. Repeat for each pumpkin.

3. Cover the front of the pumpkin with glue or Mod Podge. Sprinkle the glitter on while it is wet. I did not think I would have enough orange glitter to do 5 pumpkins, so I mixed the packet of orange with the packet of gold. It lightened the color a bit and made it seem even more sparkly. Glitter all of the pumpkins.

4. Use the glue gun to glue one or two leaves to each stem.

If you do not have scraps of wood sitting around, I think you could adapt this to many other objects. How about candles, jars, tin cans, spools, books? Look around the house and see what you have.

Glitter on!

Sparkle