Marbled Blacklight Pumpkin DIY

October 9, 2018 by Alexa Leave a Comment

If you’re a pumpkin crafter, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of nail polish pumpkins. The thing with nail polish pumpkins; however, is that you have very little polish to work with and you generally can only dip smaller-sized pumpkins with them. Also I personally think using nail polish is a lot more stinkier than spray paint (this may be a personal preference). Anyway, after seeing this post a few years back Alisa Burke marbleizing paper and ornaments, I knew I wanted to try it with a pumpkin and I’m actually happy with how mine turned out. Let me show you how easy and fun these are to make!

What you need:

— faux pumpkin
— various colors of spray paint (I used neon so they’d look good under blacklight)
— large bin filled with water
— Gloves (get the gloves, see below)

Before you begin:
Fill a large plastic bin with water. You want enough water so you can submerge your entire pumpkin.

Spray the first color on top. It will spread out as you spray into a halo shape in the water.
Keep spraying and adding more colors till the surface of the water is totally filled with colors.

Once you’ve sprayed the surface, immediately dip your pumpkin.

It takes a little force to push the pumpkin below the water. It was hard for me to capture on camera, but once your pumpkin is totally dunked, you need to pull it up lifting off the paint from the surface of the water.

If there’s an area of the pumpkin that you’ve missed, you can dunk it back in and focus on that area. You may layer over top of a. section you’ve already covered, but because this is abstract and random, it’s hard to mess it up!

Remember when I said you needed gloves. This is why. I got the spray paint on my hand and it took a couple days for it totally to be off my hand. There was a lot of hand washing those two days. LOL.

Here’s what it looked like when I set up my blacklight. I was wanting the neon to really pop and pop it did! I am looking forward to putting this in my glowing decorations this Halloween!

Rainbow Rhinestone Pumpkin DIY

September 13, 2018 by Alexa 3 Comments

Forget the orange and black pumpkin decor this year and really do it up BIG! Cause nothin’ says BIG like unloading a freakin’ rainbow of color onto a mini pumpkin. I’m kinda obsessed with this little DIY cause it combines both sparkle and color together for an absolute feast for the eyes. And this is something you can make in just under and hour. Let me show you how it is done!

What you need (links below include affiliate links)
— Mini pumpkin
— Paint in a rainbow of colors
— Mini rhinestones (with adhesive backing)
— Paintbrush and paint palette

I have to admit something before I begin telling you how to make this pumpkin……it is so insanely easy to make. The majority of the work involves painting on the paint and letting it dry. I went around the pumpkin, separating the colored sections by the ribs. Go around the pumpkin once, then go around it again to get two solid coats. Let dry thoroughly. Make sure to turn over and finish off the bottom (or don’t worry about it if the bottom isn’t going to show).

Next, use the coordinating color rhinestone sticker and position in the coordinating color section. This is literally a pull off and stick process, but you will want to make sure you space them in random polka dot style all around around your pumpkin.

And here’s the finished result. SWOON!!!!!!

This is a super fun craft to make for your rainbow-obsessed friends to give as a fall gift for their office or home.

If you aren’t a fan of rainbow, consider painting your pumpkin a solid color, then adding tone on tone rhinestone dots. You could also use a complementary color for fun contrast!

I’d love it if you checked out my other rainbow pumpkin creations…

How to Make a Rainbow Glitter Pumpkin
Rainbow Crayon Drip Pumpkin
Crayon Scribble Pumpkin
Glitter Drip Pumpkin

How To Paint Your Own Pennywise Pumpkin

October 16, 2017 by Alexa Leave a Comment

This Halloween season, Pennywise, from the movie IT is the go-to movie to see. I’m seeing all kinds of articles on how you can rock this clown custom for Halloween 2017, but I thought I’d turn Pennywise into my kinda craft- a pumpkin, of course. Let me just tell you, taking the above pic was pretty amusing. Instead of scouting for models, I went scouting for gutters in my neighborhood. LOL. I think the end result turned out pretty sweet. And fun fact, I’ve never seen this movie or the original that all my friends were scared of when I was a child of the 90’s. I do recognize a viral character when I see it, and knew I had to get on the clown action.

What you’ll need:

– White medium-sized pumpkin
– Red, black, and white acrylic paints
– Tacky Glue
– Paintbrushes
– Red feather marabou boa
– Scissors

Before you begin: I painted the off-white pumpkin with white acrylic paint to give the clown a more pale complexion.

Next pull up a pic of Pennywise for reference…I did my project freehand, but you can plot yours out with pencil if you’d like.

I then painted my pumpkin as shown below…I started with a liner brush drawing the red on the lips, I then went back in around the lips adding outlines and shading. Around the grin, I added lines to accentuate.

Next I drew the red lines that go from the grin to above the eyes. After I did that, I added in more additional shading detail and started to draw the eyes and frown lines.

I finished up the face with additional shading and red eyes. For finishing touches, I added some chin and face shape definition. Also clean up any messy details with white paint after everything has dried. My last step was to mix a little glue and paint to make faux cracks and gritty details to the forehead and face. The final step is to cut, then glue on the feather boa to the top of the pumpkin in a horseshoe fashion.

This turned out pretty fun (and creepy). When I get into the zone painting, I realize how much I enjoy it.

Taking photos of this pumpkin may have been more fun than actually painting it. For this one, I hid the pumpkin in some bushes and peeked through to get this shot. Nothin’ quite like a creepy clown lurking in the shadows.

And I thought the dead grass and wooden fence at sunset made for a nice backdrop as well.

Let me know what you think of my pumpkin and if it creeps you out. And fun fact, I actually like clowns…I grew up with paintings of them in my room as a toddler. They were mainly the hobo and circus clowns type. I don’t know if I should watch this movie or not and change my perception.

If you love this project, share it with your friends, and check out this cute stop motion video I did using the steps above to create this DIY project. I made this little vid for the Darby Smart app! If you want ot make your own DIY vids easily using only your phone, give this app a try. Available now in the app store.

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4 pumpkin crafts not from real pumpkins

September 16, 2012 by Alexa 5 Comments

Today I wanted to bring to you a handful of fun pumpkin ideas that were created out of pure cleverness and ingenuity using common everyday materials! I love when people get innovative with materials they have on hand, don’t you? It’s especially great, since it’s not that easy to find real pumpkins in stores yet! And Foam pumpkins from the craft stcan get expensive, y’all!

Learn how to make yarn ball pumpkins with the DIY Showoff. This is probably one of the easiest and great-looking pumpkin projects you can make on the fly.

A Diamond in the Stuff used dryer vents to make this pretty pumpkin. So cool and imaginative!

Who knew Mason Jar lids could make such a pretty, rustic pumpkin. What a perfect solution from Simply Klassic Home.

A styrofoam ball and folded felt make for an adorable pumpkin design from Clean and Scentsible.

Seeing these innovations makes me wanna think beyond the traditional pumpkin, doesn’t it you?

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

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Snooki from Jersey Shore Halloween Painted Pumpkin

October 19, 2010 by Alexa 12 Comments

I wanted to do a memorable pumpkin this year and I thought this one would be just the ticket. I’m not a huge Jersey Shore fan, admittedly, I’ve caught a marathon or two on occasion. I do know that people are totally obsessed with Snooki and her funny ways and I wanted to celebrate her pop culture icon through craft. A while back I was thinking about her guidette hair and I had a funny thought that it looked like a mini pumpkin sitting on top of her head. So, with that random thought came the idea to do this pumpkin. And I knew I had to add it to my Halloween craft list!

Here’s how you make it!

Snooki from Jersey Shore Halloween Painted pumpkin

Materials:
– medium sized pumpkin
– mini pumpkin
– acrylic paint in various colors
– paintbrushes (liner and foam brushes)
– Aleene’s Tacky Glue
– Sharpie
– Dowel rod or pencil
– newspaper
– Aleene’s® Spray Acrylic Sealer™
– paint palette (I used a lid)
– hoop earrings (optional)
– trucker hat (optional)
– pickle (optional)

Instructions:

Before you begin: Clean off and wipe down your pumpkins with wet cloth.

1. Gather all your supplies. Admittedly, this pic doesn’t contain all the items listed above. I get a little camera snap happy and don’t always organize my materials. I sometimes wing it as I go.

2. Remove stems from pumpkins

3. With a printout of Snooki to go by, I drew her face on with a Sharpie.

4. Paint her hair black and let dry. You may have to do this in sections and apply two coats.

5. Paint mini pumpkin black. Again, you may have to do in sections and apply two coats. Let dry.

6. Paint detail into her face. Use a liner brush to do the black and eyeliner and mascara for eyes. I used the Tulip 3D Fashion Paint in a Pearl finish for her lips (and to make it dimensional like her infamous pucker).

7. I made a mistake and forgot to photograph this step! You cut a piece of dowel rod to size (you can also use a pencil…this is what I did). Poke the pencil through the large pumpkin at the crown and slide down. Now poke the top of the pencil through the bottom crown of the small pumpkin. Once you make the hole in the bottom of the mini pumpkin, remove it and move onto step 8.

8. Add glue to the bottom of the mini pumpkin (this will give your pumpkin added stability and make sure the top pumpkin stays connected to the bottom pumpkin.

9. Push mini pumpkin back onto pencil this time and connect the two pumpkins together. Let glue dry thoroughly.

10. When totally dry, spray with Aleene’s® Spray Acrylic Sealer™ to help preserve the pumpkin throughout the season!

Adorn your Snooki pumpkin with hoop earrings and a hat if you want. Give her a pickle and call it just another day at the Jersey Shore!