Painted Pumpkin DIY

I love fall!  The colors are so cozy and inviting, and I want to make the most of each day of the season.  This year, I decided to paint artificial pumpkins instead of carving real ones because we will be able to enjoy them all season long (and even next year!) without any of them going bad.

Below is a tutorial of how to create beautiful decorative pumpkins that you can use year after year.

First, I decided what designs I wanted for my pumpkins.  I liked the idea of lots of pattern, and gold to maximize the warm tones.  After landing on polka dots as one of my choices, I found coins that were about the size I was hoping for (one foreign coin I found around the house, and one penny).  I alternated the coins all over the pumpkin in a random design, tracing around the perimeter with pencil.

Next, I used a gold paint pen to trace the outlines.  This process was imperfect, but I tried my best to keep any bumps or unevenness on the inside edges of the circle, since they would get filled in anyway.

Last, I took some gold paint and filled in the gold circles.  The coverage of the paint was a little more transparent than the pen, so I recommend two coats if you have the time.

Here's the finished product.

Here's a breakdown of this project:

Fake pumpkins: JoAnn's - $5.99 to $14.99.  The list price is much higher, but I found them on sale for 60% off!

Gold paint pen: JoAnn's - $2.  Used a 50% off coupon on that item.

Gold paint: JoAnn's - $2.49.

All in, I spent about $33, and I can use these every year!

One quick note on the other pumpkins, I used a stencil for one of the small orange pumpkins, free-handed the large "D" pumpkin, and used the back end of my paint brush to do the pin dot pumpkin.