This post is AKA Pinned It.... And DID It!!!
A while ago, I saw this idea on Pinterest of making a pumpkin topiary.
Isn't that cute? It's a little too far on the shabby chic side for me, but I managed to make it my own. I also wanted it to be a permanent part of my fall decor, so I decided to use fake pumpkins. I also decided that due to the cost of fake pumpkins, I would only use three and they would display my house number.
So Francesca and I went off to Michael's to gather supplies. I got three pumpkins, some leaf/acorn pieces, a package of moss, a 1" dowel, a pretty bucket, and of course a handful of hot glue sticks.
Here's the pumpkins. They were $7 or so each.
I started by drilling holes in the bottom of each pumpkin. I have no idea what this drill bit is called, but obviously it's used to drill holes. I searched around the garage until I found something that would work.
This was surprisingly easy! The only issue was all the orange foam crumbs all over my table and floor.
It was at this point I realized I wasn't sure how I was going to drill a hole in the top of the pumpkins for the dowel to go through, since the stems were not as easy to manuever with the drill bit. I played around with them and realized I could just put the bottom hole on top of the stem beneath it and hot glue those suckers. So no dowel needed!
The next step was painting on the house numbers. I know my own limits - freehand lettering/drawing is not one of my gifts in life. So I printed out three numbers in 100 point font. I don't really remember the size, but I just kept increasing the font size until each number filled a page.
I used a craft knife to cut out the numbers from the paper, then used the negative as a stencil on each pumpkin.
You can see the number 4 lightly drawn in pencil on the top pumpkin. It was then I discovered that I, in fact, did NOT have any black acrylic paint. So after a quick trip to Walmart, I painted each pumpkin in the stenciled number. I really glooped it on there. That's a technical term for really really thick paint. I wanted it to be visible from fairly far away, so glooping it was a must.
After the paint was dry, it was time for assembly! Hot glue!
I started with some floral foam in the bottom of the bucket.
I hot glued leaves and moss around the perimeter, then just placed the pumpkins and glued them in place. Keep in mind, floral foam does not hold up super well to hot glue. So just be careful you don't melt away all the foam, but also that you don't burn your fingerprints off when you push leaves into the glue.
So here is the finished product! I glued some moss around the leaves and even in beween each pumpkin.
And here it is adorning the front of our house!
I put this wooden sign we have in the bucket as well.
I think it turned out super cute! I'm really proud of myself for actually completing a craft. And the fact that it is adorable is just the stem on my pumpkin, so to speak... The whole thing took me about two hours, including that extra Walmart trip and playing around with it to see what exactly would work for construction.
Happy fall!
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