Pumpkin season is almost here once again. A time of warm days and crisp night. A time for giving thanks and trick or treating. I admit it, Fall is my favorite season, sorry summer. I love the smell of fallen leaves baking in the sun, the juicy apples right off the tree and cornstalks leaning on my front porch!
When it comes to Fall, I love to decorate, be it for Thanksgiving or Halloween. What I don’t like are the high prices in stores for cute decorations. I am a frugal (or as my family puts it, cheap) woman. I prefer to make my own decorations at a fraction of the cost. I even impress myself sometimes at what I can pull of like spider pumpkin candle holders and mummy jars. And for Halloween I turned yard flamingos into vultures and whipped up our own headstones for the yard.
This year my oldest son got into the crafting spirit with me and we made a some rustic 2×4 pumpkins that were not only super easy to make, but are down right adorable. This project actually came about because our county fair has a class for seasonal decorations and my oldest wanted to make something to enter.
Our first step was to raid the scrap wood pile. Yes, we have an area we keep miscellaneous lumber bits. He pulled out this aged 2×4 which we cut into various lengths with my saw. My son isn’t a fan of power tools, but since he wanted to make some, he had to cute his own wood. I am such a mean mom, right? He made a graduated set of pumpkins and simply eyeballed his cuts so that he had three different lengths.
Since the wood had been sitting out for some time, it was “aged.” You know, looking a little rough. It had dings on it, and knots in the grain, but it was perfect for our rustic pumpkins. You can totally use new wood however. With a little acrylic paint, we quickly turned this old boards into bright and cheery pumpkin bodies. Depending on how rustic you want them to look will determine how many coats of paint you put on.
For the pumpkin vines, we used wire we had in our tool drawer. We twisted it around a regular old pencil in order to get the coiled loops. I think the wire really brings character to the pumpkins but if you don’t have any, you can go without it.
For the pumpkin steams, I sent my son out to scour the yard for a stick about the size of his thumb which we cut into various lengths for the different 2×4 pumpkin bodies. While he was outside, I dipped into my fabric stash for some lovely green fabric to make pumpkin leaves from. These I cut freehand in a heart shape.
Now is the part where I say “some assembly required.” With a drill, we made two holes for the wire vines. This way they could be glued in and secure. He made the holes just on either side of where the stick stem would be, so that the stem would help secure everything while it dried.
After slipping the fabric leaf on the wire vine, the wire was inserted into the drilled hole with glue.The stem was then glued down to finish off the project. My son might have gotten a little glue happy, but he wanted to make sure it all stuck.
I don’t know about you, but I think they turned out stinking adorable! And the best part? We didn’t spend anything to make these!! That’s right, we scavenged or had on hand everything we needed to make these. I love having a craft stash!
The oldest country kid took his set of pumpkins to the county fair and he not only got a first place blue ribbon on them, he also won a best of class rosette!! So now we can say these rustic pumpkins are not only easy to make and adorable, but award winning too!
What a cute idea! 🙂
I would love for you to share this with my Facebook Group for recipes, crafts, tips, and tricks: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pluckyrecipescraftstips/
Thanks for joining Cooking and Crafting with J & J!
Thanks for the invite!
Visiting from the Wonderful Wednesday link-up. Such a cute DIY project! Pinning for sure!
Thanks for the pin!
These are adorable! I have been looking around for some fun fall themed crafts to do with my boys and I think they'd love these! Pinned.
They are fun to make and really add a fall touch to the home. I hope you guys have fun!
Clever! I just love these – I feel a hands-on project coming on as we get ready for fall!
Do it! You will love them 🙂
Thanks for linking up and sharing with us at #overthemoon link party. Have a lovely day x
Thanks for popping by!
Well done for the Blue Ribbon! Your DIY Rustic Pumpkins are really cute, and what a fun project to help teach kids about building things. Sharing! Thank you so much for bringing this post to The Hearth and Soul Link Party, Mindie! Have a lovely weekend!
Thanks so much for sharing! We had a fun time making these.
have seen these at many craft fairs, thanks for sharing how they are made. They look super festive perfect for the entire fall season
come see us at http://shopannies.blogspot.com
They are super easy to make! Don't buy what you can make!
I think your pumpkins are just as cute as can be! Such a great idea! Thank you for sharing at Party in Your PJs.
Thanks so much. We certainly enjoy them 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing this terrific idea at our Party in Your PJs link party. I'm going to feature this tonight at my Grandma Ideas link party!
Thanks you!
This is beyond cute! Thanks for sharing it with us on the Homestead Blog Hop!
Thanks!