DIY Painted Pumpkins (for Thanksgiving)

Remember the pumpkins I had on my November To Do list the other day?   I managed to paint them in time for my Thanksgiving ‘hostess with the mostess’ act this week. Thought I’d share  here with you.

tools

1 A base paint for your pumpkins. I bought a sample of black paint from a local hardware store for this project.

2 Different color paint for your lettering/stencil.

3 Paint brush or sponge to paint pumpkins (not pictured: you will also need a thin brush for your letters/stencil).

4 Xacto knife to cut out letters.

5 A print out of your intended message. My pumpkins were on the small side, so I decided to keep it short with “Give Thanks”.

6 A cutting mat for your stencil.

how to

 

1 Get two victims pumpkins.

2 Enlist help if you can. Junior enjoyed helping out, and it cut down on my work time.

3 Remember to protect your work surface. I used paper bags from the grocery store.

4 For the stencil, I printed out the text I wanted on PowerPoint so that I could have an approximate measurement of the width and length of the text.

5 Rather than trying to tape the paper to the pumpkin, I traced the letters in pencil. The graphite was pretty visible on the black paint.

6 It requires a steady hand, but using the penciled letters as a guide also gave me more flexibility.  This also meant I didn’t have to worry about the paint bleeding under the stencil.

 

So there you have it. With just a few tools that you probably already have on hand, you can extend the life of those Halloween pumpkins into the Thanksgiving holiday and beyond.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I will see you back here next week.