Rainbow Rhinestone Pumpkin DIY

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rainbow-sparkle-pumpkin

rainbow-rhinestone-pumpkin
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!

rhinestone-pumpkin-supplies
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).
paint-the-pumpkin
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!!!!!!

rhinestone-pumpkin-1
This is a super fun craft to make for your rainbow-obsessed friends to give as a fall gift for their office or home.

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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!

rainbow-sparkle-pumpkin

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

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pennywise-pumpkin-screenshot

how-to-make-a-pennywise-pumpkin

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.

pull-up-a-pic-of-pennywise

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.

pennywise-pumpkin-illustration

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

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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.

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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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Starry Night Pumpkin Painting Tutorial

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Today I am here with another fun pumpkin DIY, this one inspired by the iconic impressionist Vincent Van Gogh!  I’ve been wanting to make this pumpkin for the past two years, and I finally got my act together and made it happen and I’m pleased with the results, considering I’ve never thought I’ve had great painting skills.  There is a little bit of a secret ingredient to getting this impressionist touch on a pumpkin…it’s the eraser on a pencil!  Check out below how I made it!

All you need for this project is:

– Pumpkin (real or faux)
– Various acrylic paints in the colors of the Van Gogh masterpiece…I used a range of Tulip Softs
in blues and yellow, with white and black for tinting
– paper plate or paint palette
– water for thinning paint
– pencil with eraser
– an image of Starry Night printed out or on your phone (I referenced my phone throughout the project).

Note: There is really no one way to complete this pumpkin as far as painting goes.  You can follow my steps below or branch out on your own if you think there’s a better option!  Also feel free to use a paintbrush or palette knife if you feel more comfortable using those.  I chose to use the back end of a pencil, because I knew it would produce a messy impressionist paint look that I was going for.

Start off by pouring some paint onto your plate.  I recommend a bigger plate than this actually. By the time I was done, my “palette” was a hot mess of color and I didn’t have much room to make new colors.

I started off by using the back end of the pencil to dot the top of the pumpkin. I left the stem black since that’s a natural color you would find in the painting’s landscape.  

I next mixed some a couple shades of yellow together and tried my hand at the sun. As you can see, the paint really sits off of the surface and has dimension using the eraser end.
I next mapped out the appearance of my the swirl in the sky and dotted that on with light blue and white. 
After that I started filling in around it and also made the sun at left.

 
Next up was the job of making the tower as well as the dark city landscape.
I mixed lots of darker colors together for this one with pops of streaks of yellow and white to suggest lights like you see in the original painting. 
After I was done painting the front, I painted the back of the pumpkin black…
…then mottled in some blue tones to make it a little less harsh of a transition from front to back.
As you can tell,  there’s a few orange spots poking through the color of the pumpkin. I’m actually ok with this, since it is a) a pumpkin and b) goes along with the impressionist look overall!

And here’s a couple more pics of how it turned out!

And of course, Dexter had to chime in on his thoughts as well.

If you like this project, please check out my 30+ more inspirational pumpkin projects. As you can tell fall and Halloween are my most favorite times of the year!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

30+ Swell & Fun Pumpkin Decorating Ideas

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Pumpkins continue to be my very favorite thing to craft! I really could decorate them all year long, it’s too bad the season is only a few months long. I thought I’d share some of my favorites in this handy dandy list, everything from my most popular of all time – the Crayon Drip pumpkin to some of my sentimental favorites like the Pumpkin man box. I think there’s a little something for everyone, from traditional to wacky! I hope to even have more to add to this list by season’s end, so check back 🙂 See any ideas you’d like to try? Until next time Swellions!

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Easy Stripe and Polka Dot Pumpkins Revisited

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pumpkins

Here’s a series of Pumpkin I did last year that I wanted to reshare! Enjoy!

I just love mini pumpkins and I love how a little pumpkin can spice up décor! So I thought I would share a few simple tips for creating super cute pumpkins in a flash! I created all these pumpkins…each about 15 minutes apiece. Here’s a few quick tips for making easy stripe and polka dot pumpkins!

– A black permanent marker is a great way to draw lines, doodle, and personalize. It’s also dries super fast. On the white pumpkin above, I drew the lines on, but then went back in with a fine liner brush and black acrylic paint to paint in the squares.

– Use the veins of the pumpkin as natural striped guides to paint your stripes. That’s what I did for the orange and black pumpkin above.

– Also on the orange and black pumpkin above, I added dot details with white acrylic paint. For dots, simply dip the end of your brush into white paint and dab onto your pumpkin. Reload as needed.

– Get perfect large polka dots by using a sponge pouncer dipped in paint. Sponge pouncers come in various sizes. For a sparkly look, sprinkle glitter onto your paint while it is still wet and let dry. Dust any sparkle residue left around the paint after the paint has dried.

– Think about other ways you can make a simple pumpkin design…play with zigzag, diagonal, swirl, patterns and more.

So be sure to stock up on lots of mini pumpkins this season and go to town making these simple pumpkins. I really think you’ll be happy with the simple, yet stunning results!

In honor of my 24 Halloween crafts in 24 hours, I’m giving away a Swell & Spooktastic Halloween prize pack. Click here to check it out and enter!

Check back next time for another Spooktastic Halloween craft!

Alexa

Bloody Vampire Painted Pumpkins Inspired by Twilight

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bloody pumpkins

Here’s a project I did last year that I just love! I decided to revisit it! Enjoy

My “Bloody Vampire Painted Pumpkins Inspired by Twilight” is not for the faint of heart. Har har. It’s for those who like to live a little more on the dark side. I originally had the drip idea, but I thought fang marks would also make for a nice, spooky pumpkin (I was inspired by Twilight, but True Blood and Dexter fans might appreciate this one as well). One could also create a cool pumpkin by spattering on the paint with a toothbrush for a Dexter-like blood spray effect. The more blood the better, eh?

Bloody Pumpkins

What you need:
– White pumpkins
– Tulip 3-D Fashion Paint in Bright Red
– cleaning wipes
– construction nail

What you do:
1. Use cleaning wipe or paper towel to clean off pumpkin and remove any dirt/debris.
2. For drip pumpkin, squeeze 3-D Fashion Paint along the pumpkin ridges. Make some drips longer than other for a more random look. Also paint along stem. At bottoms of drips, squeeze a little more paint to look like the blood has coagulated.
3. For fang marks pumpkin, use construction nail to dig 2 small holes into pumpkin about an inch and a half apart. Place tip of 3-D paint into hold you dug out and gently squeeze. Draw a line down from hole and create a bead of paint at end to suggest coagulation.

This will probably be the first and last time you will hear me refer to the word coagulation on my blog. Ha. My creepy/gross side doesn’t come out very often.

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

The Thankful Pumpkin

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thankful pumpkin

I have had this project on the brain for quite some time, but I think now is an appropriate time to unleash it. Even though I love Halloween, I also love fall and all the colors and warmth that it brings (not warm weather, unfortunately). More warm-hearted feelings.

I’ve been noticing on a lot of blogs (including my friend Kristin’s), that a lot of people are becoming very in tune this season with what they are thankful for. I think it is always good to step back and take a look at the big picture and really evaluate the little and big things that we sometimes take for granted. This project can be a way for you to reconnect with yourself and possibly family and friends during this upcoming Thanksgiving season.

The Thankful Pumpkin

Supplies:
– medium or large pumpkin
– Paper Effects Copper Pearl paint
– thin drafting tape (I used Rainbow Tape)
– newspaper
– damp cloth

Instructions:
1. Wipe off any dirty spots of pumpkin with cloth.
2. Spiral tape around pumpkin as a guideline for your writing.
Thankful pumpkin step
3. Lay down newspaper, and using writer, write “I’m thankful for…” and then list things you are thankful for. You may need to do it in sections at a time, so not to smear your paint. Let dry.

Here’s a full pic of my finished pumpkin:

thankful pumpkin 2

I’m going to try to do a few more Thanksgiving projects as the season progresses and time permits. So please check back!

Until next time Swellions,

Alexa

Pumpkin Painting Idea Center

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The pumpkin bunch

Hello all. I don’t don’t know if I officially told you about this, but I wanted to direct you over to my work’s web site to check out the bevy of fun and inspiring pumpkin painting ideas! This is a little graphic I whipped up for the home page. Our designers are super talented and come up with the best ideas for transforming painted pumpkins, so it’s never hard for me to create a graphic with a lot of personality!

The site features over 40 pumpkin painting ideas as well as other fun Halloween craft projects, from wearables to accessories to décor! There really is a style of pumpkin or craft for everyone! Also on the site is a section of tips and techniques, telling you exactly how to prepare your pumpkin. Other sections are “How to throw a pumpkin painting party” and “how to display your painted pumpkins”. The creative departments really worked hard to bring you these fun ideas, so check it out today!

Click here to check out the site! Please stop by and paint a spell, won’t you?

Do you have a fun painted pumpkin idea? I’d love to see it. Leave a link in my comment box and I’d love to share!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

A long slumber

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I just woke up. Meaning I just woke up from a long slumber where I forgot to post all about my Terrorific Tuesday and all that goodness. Oh well. Such is life. I didn’t have the most terrific day yesterday and you know the kind…you just want to go to sleep and wake up anew.

In other news, check out something I helped work on at work…the DecoArt Pumpkin Painting Idea Center. There are ALOT of really great ideas for pumpkin painting. It is the most extensive resource on the net for such ideas. There’s so much on there, you’ll just have to see for yourself!

Until next time Swellions! Gotta go check on the bath water, it may have ran over in the amount of time it took to write this (but I really doubt it).

Alexa