Friday's 5 Favorites: Cute Pumpkins with No Carving!

Carving a pumpkin is not everyone's cup of tea. It's gross, messy, time-consuming, and, if you don't like pumpkins, it stinks! But it's fall and there is some unwritten rule that I need cute pumpkins in my house (Pinterest pressured again!) My dear sweet lab (yes there's sarcasm there) keeps eating my pumpkins outside so I needed some small ones inside. As much as I love white pumpkins, they need a little pizazz too.  I worked this week on decorating a few to add to my extensive Halloween set up in the house.  Here's what I came up with.

1.  MONOGRAM PUMPKIN:

This might be my favorite!!!  I painted this pumpkin with chalkboard paint.  You can spray paint it any color; I just liked the look of chalkpaint.  I spray painted a wooden "W" with gold spray paint.  Once everything was dry, I took my glue gun to adhere the "W".  This pumpkin is sitting on our bench on the front porch.  LOVE IT!!

                  

   

2.  SPRAY PAINT AND PEARLS:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my Halloween color scheme in the living room-black, cream and gold.  I took the small pumpkins (also called gourds) and spray painted them gold.  Once it dried, I took my glue gun and some flat backed pearls, and went to town! I love the way it turned out!!!  I have a few more fake pumpkins that are about to get the same treatment! Seriously it took longer for these babies to dry than it did to decorate them.

                       

3.  WASHI TAPE:

Another easy 5 minute pumpkin idea the kids could do!  I found a pack of turquoise colored washi tape at Hobby Lobby on sale.  Since our sitting room off the kitchen is brightly colored, I added a few bright, non-traditional Halloween colored items like lime green skull head.  This pumpkin would fit perfectly in that room once done.  I chose a white pumpkin (the only one the dog did not completely eat!). I started my strip of washi tape at the stem and went down toward the bottom of the pumpkin.  I did this all the way around with different strips.  My pack came with chevron, polkadots and a solid turquoise roll.  I added a gold bow to the top.

                             

4.  RIBBON:

This pumpkin is so easy, a monkey could do it.  I used another pie pumpkin since I was putting it on the mantel.  I bought to two spools of ribbon in black and gold.  One ribbon was wider than the other so that I could layer them.  I wrapped the wide ribbon around the pumpkin and hot glued it to the back.  I took the thin ribbon (polkadots!!) and wrapped it around the gold ribbon, making sure that stayed in the middle of the gold ribbon.  I put a few sporadic dots of hot glue to hold the thin ribbon.  That's it!!  I did add a bow around the stem to hide it a little.

       

5.  PUSHIPNS:

The last super easy , non-carving alternative is to use pushpins (or thumbtacks).  I found a box of 100 at Hobby Lobby by the counter.  I took my last white pumpkin and stuck pins every place I could.  I started with a pattern but that got out of control quick.  It gives it a nice polkadot effect.  And we know how much I LOVE polkadots!!!

                           

 

There you have it folks!  5 alternatives to carving pumpkins that won't break the bank or take up an entire weekend!  Most of these ideas that kiddos can do too!!  Just be careful with the glue gun!  Then when you are done, enjoy the pumpkin recipes from Wednesday and the Cheesecake Pumpkin Martini from yesterday's post!  Happy Friday friends!

Hugs y'all!

LSG

   

   

 

Texas Tuesday-The Lone Star Jack

For today's Texas Tuesday, I wanted to do something different.  Usually I blog about some great place in Texas to visit.  In this blog, I wanted to bring two of my favorites together: Halloween and Texas!  So that brings us to this guy!  Yes, the sticker says it's Oklahoma grown!

              

It's been a few years since I carved a pumpkin.  The last time I carved a pumpkin, my daughter was 4, and accidentally called 911.  Cue the policemen at the door and mama answering with a pumpkin knife in her hand.  Yea, that was a fun afternoon!  Now that my kids are older (and we no longer have a house phone), I thought I would give it a try.  But I did not want a traditional jack-o- lantern.  I needed a simple design.  I needed a cool design.  I needed one that represented our family.

First, we cut the top off and cleaned out all the goop!!  We saved the pumpkin seeds to roast later!

              

              My lovely assistant for 2 handfuls of pumpkin guts.  Then he was done!

Once all the goop and seeds were out, I traced the face on the pumpkin.  I let the little guy help pick the design.  I had a few ideas that he could pick from.  When I finally got the design traced, it was time to start cutting. The lovely assistant did not want to touch the pumpkin anymore but he had PLENTY of opinions on how I should carve the pumpkin.  However, I blocked the 8 year old's opinions on how to carve and.... this is what we ended up with.

            

              

I still need to preserve our pumpkin.  He is staying inside since our dog loves pumpkins!  To preserve the pumpkin, you can find various ways online.  I am going to soak ours in bleach water for 1-2 hours.  I will add a teaspoon of bleach for each gallon of water.  You  can also put one of those silica packets (like those packets that come in new shoes!)to keep away mold. I used a votive since that was what I had but candle heat dries out the inside of the pumpkin.  Tomorrow I will be going to look for a battery operated one!

Hope you enjoyed my pumpkin carving journey.  This one inspired me to think of other ways to incorporate Texas into other pumpkin pojects!!  I think I might feel another blog coming on!l

Hugs y'all!

LSG