Decoupaged Pumpkin

 Halloween is always a fun holiday. I love answering the door and seeing the neighborhood kids in their costumes and having the chance to talk with neighbors that I only see a couple of times a year. It's also a busy holiday for me-baking and shipping Bat Cookies to Brittany and Michelle, decorating and sprucing up the front of the house. Today was warm and sunny so I spent the afternoon painting the trim around the door and windows. For a brief moment I thought about covering the areas that needed painting with craft store spider web material for a true haunted house look and going off into my studio to work on my decorations. I grabbed the paint and paint brush and headed out doors to paint. C'est la vie!

I'm really glad that I did the painting because it only took about 2 hours and I had the rest of the afternoon to work on my decorations (guilt-free). I really like the idea of craft pumpkins. They can be decorated and then stored away and re-used in the future. Rather than carve a real pumpkin to sit out on my porch, I decided to decorate craft pumpkins instead. I am working on the first of three decorated pumpkins, using Cricut and Modge Podge  I am posting this as I am working on it (the Modge Podge hasn't completely dried). As with all decoupage projects this will take several coats of Modge Podge over several days.

Directions for Decoupaged Craft Pumpkin:

Medium size Craft Pumpkin- available at Michaels
Cricut Happy Hauntings cartridge
Black, brown, orange, yellow and white card stock
K&Company Kelly Panacci Halloween Paper Pad- purple dotted card stock
EK Success circle cutter
Sizzix Sizzlets Bat die
Sizzix Big Kick or similar die cut machine
Modge Podge Clear Gloss
Colored pencils
Googly eyes
Modge Podge spray sealant
foam brush for applying Modge Podge

1.  Using the Cricut Happy Hauntings cartridge cut the Owl at 4 inches out of black card stock. Press the Owl and Shift keys to cut the branch out of brown card stock. Press the Layer 1 key to cut the eyes out of white card stock. Press Layer 1 and Shift to cut the feet and beak out of orange card stock. Finally, press Layer 2 to cut the stomach and upper part of the head out of purple dotted card stock. Assemble the owl. Accent the branch, feet, beak and stomach with colored pencils. Glue two small googly eyes to the Owl's face.

2.  Cut two sets of Bats (out black card stock) using the Sizzix.

3.  Use the circle cutter to cut a yellow circle for the moon.

4.  Glue the Owl to the front of the pumpkin with Modge Podge. Glue the moon slightly above the Owl's head on the upper right side. Glue a small Bat to the left edge of the moon. Randomly glue the rest of the Bats to the upper portion of the pumpkin.

5.  Apply a light coat of Modge Podge to the pumpkin and set aside to dry. Repeat the process until you have applied four coats. After the final coat of Modge Podge is dry spray the pumpkin with Modge Podge sealant.