Friday, September 23, 2011

Painting Pumpkins

 
(Image by Pottery Barn)

So it is finally fall...my favorite season! For the past few weeks I've been looking at Pinterest and my Pottery Barn catalog trying to find inspiration for autumn decor. I love bringing the outside in, and fall is a great time to do that! This season I've been particularly taken by white pumpkins. Don't get me wrong, I still love the big bright orange ones too but these little cuties in the Pottery Barn catalog caught my eye. If only they weren't $20 a piece (and up...) I don't want one pumpkin in my house. I want to set them out in pairs, fill my mantel, etc... I definitely couldn't do that at $20 a piece.  Fortunately I've learned that a lot of things can be reproduced for a fraction of the cost if you use your imagination and a little big of paint. So I headed to the Dollar Tree...yes, where everything is a dollar, and found this rag-tag group of pumpkins in need of a makeover.


As you can see they are foam and plastic...and they look a little bit cheap and shiny. The orange is not quite right either. But they were a dollar. You know what else is $1 just about anywhere? Craft Paint. The first thing I did to these guys was spray paint them white with cheap (97 cent) spray paint from Walmart because they orange was pretty bright and I wanted to get it covered quickly.


After spray painting them I took at creamier white and dabbed it on the pumpkins with a sponge brush. Then I also used some brown craft paint to add depth by dabbing it in the contours. (This is not pictured because this post is just a preview.) I also tied some brown string around the stems. They look so great, but I am not going to show you the finished product just yet since I'm still working on finalizing my decor. For my mantel I also wanted a creative way to display some of the pumpkins. I liked this look in pottery barn where the pumpkin is displayed atop a bowl/pillar.

(Image by Pottery Barn)

Again the price is not budget friendly at $39 and I'm actually not totally crazy about that style, just the idea. I decided to look for some white candle pillars. I found a few but still didn't want to pay $10 a piece for them. Then I found these little babies at Dollar Tree:


Are they leopard? Oh my...nothing a little white spray paint white won't fix. $1 a piece? I'll take them. You'll have to wait to see them finish product when I share my finished mantel. I'm really pleased with how it turned out! Lastly I decided to paint a couple of the small pumpkins a little differently by giving them a brown undercoat for a really distressed look. I started with this:


I used a muted brown craft paint and painted a thin layer over the entire pumpkin. I actaully like the way it looks here. I distressed some pumpkins like this last year. But I had more plans for this little guy.


Over the brown I dabbed a layer of vintage white using a sponge brush again, and I love my finished product. So it was a busy day of painting and my hands and fingernails look awful...but it was well worth it for the money I saved and the results! Can't wait to share the rest once I'm completely finished. I will leave you with a little sneak peak...



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