Hello October! Fabric Pumpkins , Leather Leaves

Hard to believe it's October already yet here it is. Even though I'm not a Pumpkin Spice fan, I do love to decorate with pumpkins from Halloween through Thanksgiving. I've had fabric pumpkins on my to make list and finally made some! 

October Lettering Doodle

Everything's new when it's the first time you do it right? My twist on these was to add leather leaves. 

Supplies: 

• Fabric of choice: I used my never ending fabric dropcloth from the HW store, and some black and white swirl fabric from my stash
• Embroidery thread and needle
• Fiberfill
• Leather Scraps
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Jute Twine and Cotton Cord
• Charms
• Twigs

For the dropcloth pumpkins, I used a standard size dinner plate as my template. For the black and white pumpkin, I used a charger.

Trace your pattern and cut out your fabric:

Using embroidery thread, do a loose running stitch around the edge of your fabric, and then pull to gather together. 

I didn't care about the contrast in thread color because I knew I'd be covering up any exposed stitching. You'll have a little sac ( which reminded my of my favorite Taiwanese dumplings). 

Stuff your dumpling, I mean pumpkin, with fiber fill until you are happy with the size etc. I kind of rolled mine around to make sure the fiberfill was even. Then pull you stitching tight and tie off. 

I chose to do this step before adding my stem but I suppose you could add the stem and then do this. For the stems, I used a cedar branch I'd cut during the Summer that was now thoroughly dried. 

Leather Scraps

A while ago, for no specific reason, I bought a bag of leather scraps at Michaels or JoAnns. Now I knew the reason! I grabbed some coordinating colors and cut leaf shapes from them. 

I glued in the stem and attached the leaves and then used twine to wrap around the bottom of the stem and cover up my glue schlubs. I then added some ribbon and charms from my stash to finish. 

I used the same process for the black and white fabric pumpkin, only instead of wrapping the stem with twine, I used cotton cord and maple leaf charms insttead of hearts. 

Printable: Fall In Love With Fall

Who's ready for Fall besides me? Summer is OK but my favorite time of year is Fall, or Autumn if you prefer. The leaves changing color. The crispness in the air. Boots and sweaters. Bring it! The calendar is not quite there but I'm getting ready so I made a Fall printable using graphics from designbundles.net.   

It's sized 8x10. Click on the image to bring it to full resolution. PC Users Right Click to Save As. 

Keeping the folks in the path of Harvey in my thoughts. 

Dollar Tree Altered Pumpkin Candleholders

I picked up a couple of extra foam pumpkins at the Dollar Tree during Halloween shopping. Like most projects I do, I knew I’d do something with them but not exactly what. Since the tag said they were carvable, I thought maybe I could use them as the base to hold glass candleholders , also from Dollar Tree. No clue why this thought came to me...just did.

For this project you will need:

• Dollar Tree ( or other carvable foam pumpkins)
• Glass candleholders (Dollar Tree)
• Craft paint
• XActo knife
• Twine
• Charms
• Hot glue gun
• Paper Roses

Using the bottom of the glass candleholder as a guide, I traced a circle around the top of the pumpkin and cut out the top with an Xacto knife:

Yay…no pumpkin guts to deal with. Inside the rim looked a little rough so I covered it with some Mod Podge and tissue paper. It doesn’t really show in the finished project but I wanted to be safe  just in case.

Paint pumpkins with a couple coats of craft paint (I used taupe).

Tip:  use push pins to make it easy to pick them up and hold while painting.

When the base color is dry, dry brush with white. The bumpy texture of the pumpkin really shows through with the dry brushing.

Glue paper roses around the top of the pumpkin (you can see the tissue paper I used to rim the inside of the pumpkin) .

Now on to the candleholders.

Wrap the twine around the top of the candleholder and tack in place using hot glue.

Hot glue charms to center:

Place candleholders inside pumpkin base.

Sharing At:
The Girl Creative

Cheap to Chic Pumpkin Transformation

So last week when I was playing with a foam pumpkin and wished that I’d bought another one, Mr. Chocolate heard me and went someplace he doesn’t ever go: Dollar Tree. I didn’t even have to ask. He surprised me and came home with a pumpkin. That’s what I call true love!
For this project you will need:

• Small foam pumpkin
• Acrylic craft paints
• Embellishments

I started with my diamond in the rough cheapo foam pumpkin.

I knew I wanted a non-traditional look so I chose a gray satin paint to base coat the pumpkin. Two coats.

I kind of liked it but what fun is just a couple of coats of paint? So I added a couple of coats of a coordinating glitter paint.

Almost left it alone after that but …nope!

I had a bunch of chocolate brown paper roses in my stash ( the kind you find in bridal supplies) so I popped the heads off the stems and hot glued them around the middle of the pumpkin.  I also remembered these funky Industrial Chic knobs I picked up on clearance at Michaels. One of those things you have no idea why you’re buying but know there will come a project and an aha moment.

I just pushed the knob right through the foam and then secured it with a dab of hot glue and added some more roses. Finished with some  copper wire wrapped around the stem. 

I may have to make yet one more trip to Dollar Tree. I may also have decided upon my Thanksgiving color scheme.