Mackenzie Childs Inspired DIY Pumpkins

 

If you've spent any time in Home Decor world, you are probably familiar with Mackenzie Childs signature style. I love it, not only because she uses tons of black and white but because it's whimsical, pretty, and not rigidly perfect. It's also expensive and while I'd love to have a bunch of pieces, I don't. But hey, we're Makers so what do we do? We use our faves for inspiration and DIY that stuff! 

Here's an example of the real ones: 

Supplies: 

• Plain Ceramic Pumpkins ( $1 each from Target)
• Paint Pens ( I used Craftsmart from Michaels)
• Acrylic Paint 

Step 1: 

Gather your supplies. I found these ceramic pumpkins for $1 each at Target in the section that none of us can get past. They know us! I also grabbed two paint pens: gold and black. 

Step 2: 

For the signature Mackenzie Childs check, I went down the lines of the pumpkin with the black pen. 

Since the style here is to look handpainted, you don't have to be perfect. 

Step 3: 

I went horizontally around the pumpkin with the paint pen to create the squares.

Step 4:

Tip: When I've done checkerboard before, I've gotten the order messed up so I've taken to putting a pencil dot in the squares to be filled in before I start filling! 

Step 5 

When all of the squares were filled in, I went back down the pumpkin spines with a gold paint pen and colored the stem. (I went back over that gold spot w/ black)

Et voila! 

The process for the Striped Pumpkin was similar but I used acrylic paints instead of paint pens.

I did a couple of coats for opacity. 

To finish, I also used paint and just went down each side w/ antique gold. 

Et voila!

I am pretty happy with my $2 project!