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.
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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