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Halloween Craft | A Dripping Paint Pumpkin

October 8, 2012 By Laura 42 Comments

000_

 Last year for the Halloween/Hallowtide season, I went bat **** crazy (no Halloween-pun intended ;), with the decorating, inside and out.  I did a huge photo-galore post on it, and it’s a popular one, come that time of year again. There is some real creativity there, for you to see. This year, however, I didn’t need to do much of anything, because I have all of last years stuff! So I’ve mostly just been doing little fall-fun crafts, and baking. I did however, decide I wanted to do a little pumpkin project I thought of, and I thought I would show it to you all, and tell you how I went about it.

001_faux-pumpkin
I started with a medium sized faux craft pumpkin.  You absolutely can use a real pumpkin if you’d like, but obviously it will not last beyond this season. So if you want your pumpkin craft for keeps, than faux is the way to go!

I also covered my table as always, to protect it, with a cheap party table cloth, of which I always have a bunch on hand from the Dollar Tree store.  Unless they get real messy (and it sure will this time), you can use them over and over.  Of course old newspaper or something else disposable will do.

002_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft I cut out an appropriate sized BOO! for my pumpkin, out of vinyl.  I don’t know why, but I have always loved the whole BOO thing, for this time of year. Probably because it’s so . . . . . . childish. Elementary. You know, not a serious scare kind of thing, because I’m really not into that.  Anyhoo, you can use any kind of graphic or word(s) you’d like for this project.  Use your imagination and put some of your own style into it. Or, you can copy my BOO, and I won’t BOO-HOO about it.

003_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
So I properly positioned my vinyl design and applied it to my pumpkin. Now you’ll notice it’s got wrinkles in it all over the place. That’s ok!  My husband is a professional master with vinyl (for real), but I’m not so much.  Of course it’s harder to apply to curving surfaces but anyway, but also, I wasn’t extra careful either because this is just a mask! I am using the vinyl to protect the pumpkin for where I do not want paint, and will later be peeling the vinyl letters back off. So any wrinkles did not concern me.  I just made sure I went over every area of the vinyl with a lot of pressure with my squeegee.  (As seen in the next photo.)

004_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
What I did want to be concerned with, was doing my best to close any gaping holes that formed at the edge of the vinyl where wrinkles were.  Because I didn’t want paint to get under there.  If you do this project, you really want to do your best to seal down the vinyl edges. Especially at the top!  Chances are paint is going to get under the vinyl somewhere, but the better you have those gaps closed off, the less clean-up on the pumpkin later.  You’ll see what I mean in a little bit.

005
Black was the only color paint I’d be using, and I had two partial bottles in my storage. So I just mixed them up together in a glass measuring cup, because the spout on the cup would be coming in handy.

006_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft To begin the painting process though, I used a flat brush and painting out the top.  I imagine a foam brush would work fine enough as well.

After I had painted out the top all the way around, it was time to get messy. Thank goodness for the table cloth.

007_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
I just started pouring paint onto the pumpkin, right out of my cup, starting on the black where I had already painted black, and about the level where gravity would take over the paint. Because getting the paint dripping is the whole goal here.

008_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
And it was working for me. : )  Now….depending on the consistency of your paint, you may want to add water to it just a drop or 2 at a time, to thin it a little of you need to at all. But really just a drop or 2 at a time, and test it, because you do not want it too thin and runny.  I really loved the look of my pumpkin right there in this photo!  lol. The 3 dimension of the paint was giving me new ideas!  But, for my original project plan here, I needed the paint to cover my lettering, and yet still have a drip look to it.

009_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
So I really got the drip factor going. You see how messy this is getting? Oh . . . you haven’t seen anything, yet. LOL.  As cool as this looked, I knew peeling the letters off with even this amount of paint, would leave it unable to read.

010_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
So I just kept adding paint, and helping it along to drip, with my brush when needed.  The paint tended to puddle on top of the pumpkin too, so I helped that out and down. And, as the paint dripped onto the table, I kept moving the pumpkin back out of the paint-puddle.  I really wanted the dripping to be evident after the word, which didn’t leave me a lot of room. So I was sure to have the drips starting from higher all around the word, on the sides of the pumpkin.

Basically at this point, I had to leave the paint to dry a little. Not bone-dry.  But dry enough to be able to peel out the lettering.

011_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
Just awhile later, I did peel out the vinyl. I used the tip of an x-acto to do that.
Now, you can see it’s a bit of a mess.  It’s obvious where the paint did indeed get under the vinyl and onto my ‘negative space’ word.  But no worries:  I just used damp q-tips to clean it off.  It took a few q-tips in some areas, and sometimes a little scrubbing with it, but it worked well enough.

012_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
Much
better, don’t you think? Not perfect, but cleaner lines.  There is still something that bugged me though . . .

013_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft This little spot is where the paint over-dried at the vinyl edge, so when I peeled off the letter B, a little paint peeled off right there.  So to fill that area in, I could have just touched it up with paint. But I didn’t. I just used a permanent black Sharpie marker to fill it in there.  And while I was at it, I went around any areas on the insides of the letters, where it could have used a cleaner line edge. I cheated. Oh yes I did.  All over the place.

And I had to paint the stem a better brown; because whatever that color was that it came as, was not working for me!

It never did become perfect, and that was o.k. with me. Because I am working on embracing imperfections since, let’s face it….I can be a hot mess some days. And there is only so much time in a week!

014_halloween-faux-painted-pumpkin-craft
So I called it DONE, and put it on simple display, with a little bale of hay and little sugar pumpkins from my mother-in-law, and I think it came out rather cute.
So BOO!
What say YOU?!



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Filed Under: Crafts & Creations, FALL Crafts and Creations, Holiday Crafts, Tutorial Tagged With: craft-pumpkin-craft-project, creative-pumpkin-ideas, Halloween, Halloween-crafts, pumpkin-decorating-ideas, pumpkin-painting

Comments

  1. 1
    carolyn ~ homework says:
    October 25, 2012 at 9:56 pm

    I have a special Halloween spotlight running today and I’ve featured your project.
    Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful creation at homework.

    Reply
  2. 0
    Devon says:
    October 17, 2012 at 9:30 am

    I absolutely love this! I pinned it to my Pinterest! What a great idea! I just have one question: Where did you get your vinyl? What brand are you using? If you get a chance (because I’m sure your busy) would you please write back with your vinyl suggestions? Thank you! Awesome work!

    Reply
    • 0.1
      Laura says:
      October 17, 2012 at 6:58 pm

      Hi Devon! –
      Ok, well my husband letters big corporate (fleets of) trucks and creates company signage, so he cuts all of my projects for me, and has a big vinyl supplier for his huge plotter/cutter. BUT….I did ask around my crafty-friends (who have crafting machines to cut designs) and got some places they love and order all of their vinyl from:

      expressionsvinyl.com (seems to be a highly recommended favorite)
      everydayvinyl.com
      mydirectvinyl.com

      Hope that helps! Thanks for coming by!

      Reply
  3. -1
    Maysem says:
    October 16, 2012 at 11:41 am

    Very cool idea! Love it!!

    Reply
    • -1.1
      Laura says:
      October 17, 2012 at 6:59 pm

      Thanks, Maysem!

      Reply
  4. -2
    Karah @ thespacebetweenblog says:
    October 13, 2012 at 7:11 pm

    Now THIS is super cute! Love it. 🙂

    Reply
    • -2.1
      Laura says:
      October 15, 2012 at 9:01 am

      Boo! ; )
      Glad you like it, Karah.
      Thanks for checking it out.

      Reply
  5. -3
    Kate says:
    October 13, 2012 at 1:32 pm

    I love pumpkin painting! This is a great idea – the finished product is awesome

    Reply
    • -3.1
      Laura says:
      October 15, 2012 at 9:00 am

      Pumpkin painting IS fun.
      Thanks for coming by and checking out our dripping paint pumpkin, Kate!

      Reply
  6. -4
    Krissy @ B-Inspired Mama says:
    October 12, 2012 at 7:42 am

    LOVE this! I hope you’ll stop over to B-Inspired Mama on Monday to enter it in my Perfectly Pumpkin Contest. 🙂

    Reply
  7. -5
    Steph @ The Silly Pearl says:
    October 9, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    Soooo cool! Your drip reverse stencil is genius!
    BOO!

    Reply
    • -5.1
      Laura says:
      October 10, 2012 at 11:21 am

      ❤ BOO to YOU, Steph! ❤
      And thanks!

      Reply
  8. -6
    Laura / Pet Scribbles says:
    October 9, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    I love this idea, and your writing always makes your projects fun to read! Pinning this to my “Pumpkin Tutorials” board! 🙂

    Reply
    • -6.1
      Laura says:
      October 10, 2012 at 11:17 am

      Oh Laura K! That’s one of the nicest things you could have said! I struggle with the writing part, all too often. Sometimes I wonder if it is too boring, and other times, like late at night when I’m writing, I wonder if I’m being extra-silly, as I tend to get when I am over-tired. Then I hesitate to post at all, what I just put so much time into! But I’m working on just ‘letting it fly’ (too). Just putting the truth out there. And the truth is; I may be a little on the unstable side. ; ) LOL!

      <3 it when you come over!!

      Reply
      • …
        Laura / Pet Scribbles says:
        October 10, 2012 at 12:50 pm

        LOL Um…who ISN’T a little on the unstable side at times? LOL Don’t change your writing style one bit! 🙂 (And thx for the real heart below, too! I still don’t know how to make those…)

        Reply
        • …
          Laura says:
          October 10, 2012 at 4:35 pm

          True, Laura K! I guess there’s nothing wrong with a little CrAzY in everybody! lol Not sure I CAN change, anyway!

          Reply
    • -6.2
      Laura says:
      October 10, 2012 at 11:21 am

      Oh wait . . . Here’s a real ❤ for you. : )

      Reply
  9. -7
    Cheri says:
    October 9, 2012 at 7:38 am

    Cute pumpkin. It looks great.
    I bet you had fun making this one.
    Your photos look really nice too.
    xo,
    Cheri

    Reply
    • -7.1
      Laura says:
      October 10, 2012 at 11:12 am

      Thanks, Cheri!
      Yes, I DID have fun. Maybe taking the photos just a tad more than the craft. But the craft was fun too. lol
      Thanks for coming by!
      XO – Laura

      Reply

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