Prettying those naked pumpkins at your front door is quick, simple and truly fun. The following are notes from Elizabeth my partner at Partybluprints.com, who completed this project, with her daughter, in less than 1 hour, including clean up time!

 

Dress your pumpkins for their big day!

Here’s how: remove dirt, dust and any debris from your pumpkins – you can give them a quick wash with water. While they’re thoroughly drying, collect a few materials from your home: (1) Tape that will adhere well to the pumpkins, (2) spray paint – whatever colors you have on hand will work (3) stickers or interesting shaped adhesives, (4) newspaper, (5) gloves.

This is what we had to work with: (1) electrical tape and painters’ blue tape, (2) black and gold spray paint, (3) Large and mini round stickers (4) newspapers, and (5) dishwashing gloves.

Once your materials are collected and your pumpkins are thoroughly dry, you’re ready to go. As always, preparation is the key. In a well ventilated area, prepare 2 distinct workspaces with newspapers. On your first set of newspapers, lay out your pumpkins. The second set of newspapers is the drying area (you don’t want to get “overspray” on your finished pumpkins). Now it’s time to have some fun. Using your tape, stickers or adhesives cover the portion of the pumpkin that you want to remain orange.

We used tape to create vertical stripes on our pumpkin. Follow the directions on the spray paint and spray your pumpkins just like any other object. Let dry slightly and then move painted pumpkins out of the way to dry completely. When your pumpkins are dry, gently remove the tape/stickers.

I recommend rubber gloves – after an explosion with the glitter spray paint and some “messiness” with the paint, we donned the gloves to protect the hands and nails. The thinner latex gloves would have been easier to work with, but our motto of the hour was “let’s work with what we have on hand”, and that we did ( see big yellow rubber gloves in photo above).

We liked the contrast of the black against the natural orange of the pumpkin. We also liked “glamour” of the gold and used it not only as the primary contrast, but as a “dusting” on the black paint (we even painted the stems gold), and we couldn’t resist making a solid gold pumpkin (it’s our Cinderella Pumpkin).

Just let loose and have some fun with your pumpkins.

One last note: In honor of my childhood tradition of carving pumpkins with my father, I had to make my own faux Jack O’ Lantern. I had to realign the tape a few times to get the angles right, but I was very pleased with the personality of my Jack O’ Lantern (featured in photo above).

I’m happy for the memories this brought back from my childhood – thanks Dad for all those seasons of carving with us! I’m also happy for the new memories I created with my daughter on our “Less than an Hour and Less than a Dime” mission to dress our pumpkins for Halloween.

 

 

 

 

 

By Dawn Sandomeno

The Partybluprints Blog – The Real Girls Resource for Entertaining At Home!