Fall Pumpkin DIY

Had seen a video showing a DIY project using Dollar Tree pumpkins as the pumpkin bases. I had seen the video last year at the end of the Fall season and just put the project on the "list" for making these at a later date for this year --  the video is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbWLA-X5SI0

Tracy shares a lot of tips and tricks and shows her bows/ribbons, how to mount the pumpkins so they have a layered dimensional look for your decor project.  I had seen other videos for these Dollar Tree pumpkins and a lot of crafters use the blank sides of the pumpkins for their pumpkin fronts. But if I did that then on the back of my pumpkins you would see all different patterns of the pumpkin fronts and I did not want that to show.  Here is a photo of the pumpkins I used for my project and you can see I had lightly sanded my pumpkin fronts to help remove the glitter or paint the pumpkins are covered in so that my finishes would adhere to the actual pumpkin fronts:

With my pumpkin fronts all sanded I covered each pumpkin with matte finish ModPodge. Once that was dried I took autumn printed card stocks from my stash and traced the pumpkins onto the card stocks and cut them out with scissors. Used the ModPodge again to put the printed card stock on the pumpkin fronts. Set those aside to dry.  I wanted my pumpkin groupings to be on a "stand" so I picked up these two Autumn signs at the Dollar Tree and a small wooden piece game from the toy section for my stands:

I used a small acrylic brown paint from Hobby Lobby and painted my two Autumn signs and two of the wooden game pieces so they would match. With the pumpkin fronts dried I used Slick Puffy Paint by Tulip in brown to add lines to the pumpkin fronts. Set that aside to dry. Used pipe cleaners from the stash and wrapped them around a pencil to make them into a coil shape. Used leaves from the Dollar Tree and hot glued those to the pumpkin tops by the stems. Added the pipe cleaners on top of the leaves and set these aside. Using all different ribbons from the stash, Dollar Tree, and Hobby Lobby I made the bows as Tracy shows in her video. Used hot glue and put the bows on the pumpkins at the base of the stems.

Used hot glue and put the pumpkin wooden piece base from one of the pumpkins onto my painted Autumn stand for the pumpkins. Added hot glue to the channel of the wooden piece and added my largest pumpkin to each stand. Layered my pumpkins and hot glued them as I went along. Added the small wooden game piece behind one of the pumpkins to keep it in place:

Here is a photo to also show the back of my pumpkin DIYs:

With the decorated pumpkins on the stand all I had to do is add moss at the base of the pumpkins and different fall items I had on hand. I had bought these flower stems at the Dollar Tree and took them apart and then put them together in layers with a gold brad:

I also used fall themed buttons from my stash and cut the shanks off of them to decorate the stands.  The orange pumpkin pieces were sold in a small bag at Hobby Lobby as was the berry trim that I cut apart and hot glues to the stands. Here is the first set of pumpkins I finished:

and the second one has three smaller pumpkin pieces:

and photos of the base stands:

Hot glued the moss and all the random pieces onto the base stands and when everything was on there I just randomly cut apart the berry trim and hot glued pieces of that here and there to fill it in. These were easy to alter and another good use of card stocks from the stash. Thanks to Tracy for her easy to follow directions and her video!  Glad I was able to be able to make a set for myself in time for Fall!