Elegant Pumpkin Topiary
A Tutorial on the Fly!
A Tutorial on the Fly!
While working on the remodel of our home I've been struggling to find a happy medium between house of hell and home of comfort. This is an ongoing renovation. We've been in the throws of it for over a year now. This month however we are finally seeing paint going up on a few walls, the kitchen cabinets are slowly being installed and appliances picked out. (Don't even get me started on that part...So not fun. Whoever said this was going to be fun and exciting was full of it!)
Anyway ~ This house is needing something to help remind all who dwell here that it is still a home and not a pit of despair. So I decided to grab onto a quick craft to add some Halloween charm to the front porch since the inside of the house is off limits for the next few weeks....Maybe even through Halloween. Sigh... At least we can decorate the outside!
So I ran to the local craft store and picked up 3 carvable foam pumpkins and a nice stout candle pillar stand. I then held onto them for a couple weeks while I tried to decide on how I wanted to decorate them. At least I knew I wanted to make a topiary! That was the easy part.
Finally deciding on a plan I sat down to draw a harlequin pattern on my biggest pumpkin only to decide mid tape line that I really didn't want that. What I really wanted was an elegant damask pattern on one some dots and some stripes. Easy enough because I remembered I had some stencil patterns in my craft room.... Oh For Heavens Sake!!! I packed my whole friggen' craft room up at the beginning of summer and totally couldn't find them to save my life. I found one but it was wreaths. Laurel leaf wreaths bee's and fleur de lis. Not damask...and it didn't look like my vision was going to pan out. Grrr...
So just before I gave up and packed the pumpkins away with everything else I decided I'd try to draw my own damask pattern.
Remember that Sponge Bob show where the commentator says "Three Hours Later." And then a few minutes later says something like "Three More Hours Later." Or something like that. If you know the one then you know where I'm going. It was totally like that! Started great then took a corner towards Why In The World Did I Think This Was A Great Idea?! Then several hours later it turned into WOW! What a Great Ideal!!! LOL
After I finished my pencil drawing I let that pumpkin sit for a couple days, did some painting on the walls up stairs, then came back to my masterpiece and sat down for a marathon of one of the weirdest shows I've seen on reality tv yet ~ My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding. Talk about a crazy dresses! Some were Fabulously Amazing and others were cringe worthy. But the crystals! OMG The Crystals!!! So many Swarovski's!!! Those definitely had my attention! So after a long evening/night of that marathon craziness I had my biggest pumpkin painted and ready for the next step.
That lead to my posting myself upstairs at my old workbench with the remaining 2 pumpkins... my wall paint was on the same table. What does 1 + 1 equal? It equals black pumpkin with creamy white wall-paint dots all over it! Yes, I used wall paint. It was the perfect solution to my not digging out in my bins and bins of crafty goodness that I packed away so we could get stuff done here. AND It looks Great!
The last pumpkin started off as the same color as the bottom pumpkin, ivory. I took it down stairs with me to sit with the boys while they watched a favorite show of theirs and proceeded to draw vining scrolls all over it in black. Oh Lawd!!! Stop me now!!! That was one UGLY pumpi-umpi-umpkin! So back up the stairs to toss it away... But Wait! Didn't I just use that can of wall paint on the other pumpkin? See where I'm going? I decided to paint it all over and cover up the ugly in the creamy white goodness that is my current favorite wall color in the house. So much better!!!
But lets Up that so much better to Tadah! How AWESOME is THIS?!!! After painting the second coat of wall paint on the little guy I put Mica powder all over the wet paint to get a glitter sparkle without having to dig out my glass glitter.
And to Answer your question because I know you're thinking it ~ Yes, I keep an abundance of mica powder out at my torching bench to use in making beads. I just happen to have like a hundred pounds of that stuff so I had LOTS to spare! AND it wasn't packed away!
So after everyone was dry and ready I cut holes in the bottoms of the top two pumpkins (the smaller two). These are the two pumpkins that are going to sit on the bottom pumpkins so the stems will go up in the holes. Kind of like an anchor, but mainly because it was what my brain though of before it thought of just cutting the stems off and gluing the bottoms to the tops. I could have done that and used a skewer to anchor the two parts together and glued away. (Might have to try that just to see how it goes.)
After all that I just glued the biggest pumpkin to the candle pillar stand. Then proceeded to glue each pumpkin on top of the last. And before you know it I had a topiary of pumpkins!
It was AWESOME! Then I stared at it too long.... What to do...What to do.... Add Crystals! Duh! Thanks My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding for the Larger Than Life Inspiration!!! Hot Glue, Crystals and BAM! More Sparkle!
Now That's a Pumpkin Topiary!!!
Ok, since that was the long version.... I'll give you a short version here:
Ingredients:
Pencil
3 Carvable Foam Pumpkins
Oil Marker by Sharpie
Paint Brush to fit your plans
Paint (I used house paint so obviously you can use what you want or what's on hand and it will float.)
Glitter (I used Mica Powder)
Hot Glue Gun and Glue
Step 1 ~ Figure out what you want your pumpkins to look like. Stripes? Dots? Etc. Look around at pumpkin topiaries on Pinterest, google them. Write down your plan and decide how you're going to tackle it.
Step 2 ~ Using your pencil Draw your pattern on your pumpkin(s). I chose to do the Damask pattern on my largest pumpkin and nothing for my other two until way later in the game. If I had access to my stencils I would have used them. But this pumpkin is all hand drawn. I found an image to get my creative juices flowing and had at it!
Step 3 ~ Color in the lines or Paint. You choose. Then let Dry
Step 4 ~ Grab your next pumpkin and repeat steps 1 - 3 depending on your plans.
Step 5 ~ Grab your third and final pumpkin and do it all over again! If you're going to do the glitter like I did to my top pumpkin apply it while the paint is wet. DEFINITELY Set it aside where it can dry without anyone touching it. (This is where I added glitter dots to the centers of each dot on my black pumpkin. Again I added the glitter to wet dots of paint then set aside to dry.)
Step 6 ~ Once all parts are dry Cut Holes in the bottom of the top two pumpkins (this can be done at the start so you don't worry about wrecking your decoration you worked so hard on doing. Yeah... should have thought of that BEFORE I started. ;) LOL)
Step 7 ~ Glue the Biggest pumpkin to the Candle Pillar Holder. Make sure it's nice and secure.
Step 8 ~ Glue the Middle pumpkin to the bottom pumpkin that you just glued to the pillar. Make sure it's seated well on the bottom pumpkin. I even added more glue to the back side between the pumpkins so I was sure they were secured together.
Step 9 ~ Glue the last pumpkin on top of the middle pumpkin. Make sure it's totally secured and you're happy.
Step 10 ~ This was the last step for me but could have been done earlier but hey, I'm wild like that! I found a bottle of gems that I somehow missed while packing and poured them all out on the table and proceeded to use my hot glue gun to glue them around the stem of the top pumpkin. When I stood back I decided I needed to let the points drip down and added more gems following the line where the points on the base of the stem were. So much better!!!
Now step back and look at how AMAZING your Topiary Looks!
If you create your own topiary using my tutorial on the fly let me know!!! I'd LOVE to see yours!!!
xoxo
Sabrina
