Smashin Pumkins

Last Updated on October 13, 2011 by Babita

Halloween is fast approaching and all the neighbors have already put up their decorations.  For this month’s project I wanted to use the humble pumpkin. Believe it or not, finding a good pumpkin was really hard. I usually prefer to buy them at the local farmer’s market, want to do my part in supporting the local farmers and everything but,  because of Hurricane Irene many of the farmers had to deal with crop destruction. I think I am rambling too much…

Moving on, the one craft everyone enjoys during Halloween is carving the pumpkin. I am an exception to that rule. I hate it!!. I find it too messy and don’t like to see the sight of pumpkin rotting in front of me. So I decided to go the other way and borrow an idea I saw in a magazine. I decided to paint it and while doing so, it evolved into something totally unexpected.

After going through several pumpkins at the farmer’s market I found this one which was the least damaged and decided to use it. Isn’t the color fabulous? I placed a plastic sheet under it and proceeded to color it.

With the help of my girls I painted the whole pumpkin black. As I was going to discard it after Halloween, I was not looking for perfection.  Allowed it to dry for a day.

Instead of painting the design over it, and this was the fun part, I traced the pattern of the maple leaf over the painted pumpkin. Slowly I   scrapped the top layer of the black paint to reveal the natural orange color underneath. The result was amazing. I then decided to pair it up with a smaller pumpkin. This time however, I left the pumpkin as is and painted black maple leaves all over it. Here check it out.