Now that Halloween is over I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving. My husband and I have a Thanksgiving tradition – we go out of town. Since we are not at home Thanksgiving day we have our dinner on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We usually have around 25 family and friends join us. Everyone brings a vegetable or dessert and we provide the turkey, dressing and ham. There is always lots of food and everyone enjoys getting together.
Last year I saw a pumpkin on Pinterest on breadboozebacon.com. After Halloween last year I went to Walmart and purchased several plastic pumpkins that children use to trick or treat for 50 cents each. Also purchased several rolls of autumn colors ribbon on sale at JoAnn’s.
This year I decided to try to make a Thanksgiving Centerpiece out of the plastic pumpkins. I followed the pictures on the website but changed a few things.
Supplies needed:
Natural hemp cord
Newspaper
Tape
Hot glue
Artificial flowers and leaves
Ribbon
First remove the plastic handle and spray paint the pumpkin white. I used the cheapest white spray paint I could find since it would be covered. Since it takes a lot of white paint to completely cover the pumpkin, I decided to put only one coat on the pumpkin. By only putting one coat on I was able to spray 3 pumpkins for $1.66
Pumpkin painted white
Stuff the inside of the pumpkin with newspaper, rounding it at the opening. Use packing tape to cover the opening and hold the newspaper inside the pumpkin. I forgot to stuff it before I spray painted it but the burlap covers it so it really didn’t matter.
Pumpkin with newspaper inside
Take paper towels cut in 2 inch strips and hot glue them on the pumpkin to help cover the green pumpkin. Glue the towel at the top and bottom, slightly overlapping each layer and pulling the towel tight so it lays flat.
Pumpkin with paper towels
Now the pumpkin is ready for burlap strips. I bought cream colored burlap at JoAnn’s. Cut it into strips, about 1 3/4 inch wide, the width of the fabric. Place hot glue on top of the pumpkin and place one end of a strip of burlap -be careful not to burn your fingers, I used a clothespin to hold the burlap down till the glue set. Stretch the burlap to the bottom and glue in place then cut the burlap strip. I was able to get 4 strips out of each long strip. Keep layering the burlap strips overlapping the edges until the pumpkin is covered. Cut a circle of burlap to cover the ends of the burlap on the bottom of the pumpkin, hot glue on.
Burlap strip
Pumpkin with burlap strips
I didn’t have a real pumpkin stem so I made one. Take a piece of newspaper fold it into fourths- should be around 3 inches tall. Start at one end and roll the newspaper up. You want a roll about 1 inch in diameter. I ended up cutting off about 3 inches of the newspaper. Place tape on the roll to keep it from unrolling.
Newspaper rolled up for stem
I used Natural hemp cord to wrap the stem. Starting in the top center coil the cord in the center and hot glue. Start wrapping the cord around the center coil. Bring the hemp down the side and continue wrapping. I placed a dot of hot glue about 3 times each round, just enough to hold the cord in place, As it gets to the bottom glue the stem to the top center of the pumpkin. Although most of the bottom of the stem will not show I brought 3 “feet” out onto the pumpkin from the stem by placing a line of glue out on the pumpkin then placing the cord in the glue turning it and bringing it back to the stem around the bottom of the stem then back out again. Keep doing this for about 3 rounds then hot glue the end to the stem.
Wrapping top of newspaper
Wrapping sides of stem
Stem attached to top of pumpkin
Pumpkin with stem attached with “feet”
The pumpkin is now ready to decorate. I visited our local Dollar Tree store and purchased fall flowers and leaves.
Flowers from Dollar Tree
On one side I glued the flowers and leaves, on the other side I glued a bow. Then went back to the flower side and added a loop of the ribbon to the top of the flowers at the stem and ribbon tail to tie the two sides together.
Finished Pumpkin
And here it is on my dining room table. The leaf vine around the bottom also came from the Dollar Tree.
Since I will have at least two table set up for lunch, I made another one the same way except made a burlap flower and using my Cricut cut a leaf out of scrapbook paper & glued Give Thanks also cut out on my Cricut to the leaf.
Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting