Hello!
The last time I did a post about pumpkins was in 2017! So, that was two years before my sister had my nephew–technically, she might’ve been pregnant with him if I remember correctly! Anyways, we were hoping to have all three of them over to have a big painting party but between the COVID scare and work schedules, it didn’t end up happening.
For once, we finally decided on a theme for the pumpkins. We have always wanted to do that, but then after some time we would forget about it and end up on doing our own thing. However, my mom was looking through her Facebook memories and found a photo of around six pumpkins painted with various M&M faces from the commercials, I shared this with her back in 2015, and I’m so glad I did because this was a perfect idea to do with our front stairs display, but of course we had to do ours differently.
Things you will need:
- Pumpkins – various size is optional
- Old newspapers
- Brushes – sponge & regular
- Paper plates
- Acrylic paint
The last time we did this, our cats were fairly distracted and didn’t even come around to the front porch to rub up on us, so it was a pleasant surprise that I think all three of us enjoyed. For this project, we started off on feeding the cats before going outside to start and I think that was our issue because they eat quickly and if they know someone is on the porch they think we brought out even more food for them! They act like we don’t feed them at all and we do, trust me!
I want to say within five minutes of coming outside to get into a comfortable position, and actually begin to paint the pumpkins, all of the cats came up to the porch to find giant orange things stealing their attention. Honestly, they behaved like good kitties throughout the entire thing.
This was a two day project, as the first my mom and I just painted on the base coats on the five pumpkins we had, and unfortunately my mom didn’t take my advice to purchase the primorary colors in medium size bottles, because it is really easy to mix the colors with acrilyic paint. As I mentioned above on the things you’ll need, your pumpkins can be in various sizes but you also need to keep in mind about the size of paints you have too. We had somewhat larger ones with small tubes of paint, so we ran out of some colors quicker than we expected to; which is why I heed this caution to you as I do not want you to be stuck with one color and find it run out before finishing the entire surface. We had to do this with our blue pumpkin. It started out with a bright blue but the next time my mom went back with a darker color for the bottom and she wasn’t very happy about the contrast in the end.
In order to cover the entire pumpkin with paint, we used the large sponge brushes. I really enjoy using these types of brushes because since they are sponges, they can absorb quite a bit of paint so you don’t necessarily have to go back and get more on the tray, but I also like them for the fact they are easy for me to grip and move around the object. I ended up painting three out of the five pumpkins while my mom did the other two and the bottoms of mine because I can’t keep my balance and paint at the same time.
The really cute part happened the next day, after we left them outside to dry fully, my dad really fall in love with the red one so he decided to come into my room later that day to create a face for the pumpkin. He made his very animated and everything had to be perfected but unfortunately he was only able to do that one, while the next time my mom and I went back to them, we just freehand the faces with a sharpie. I thought this would be easier so to give us some kind of guide to what the faces should look like, and I’m glad we did it this way and because it was helpful to us.
After my mom finished her pumpkin: the only girl and green pumpkin. (which turned out really cute, but I think we overestimated the size of the pumpkin because the whole face is so small compared to the rest, but like I told her, everything is a trial and error; we learn from previous “mistakes” and move on. If we had decided to keep the letter “m” underneath the faces, I think we might’ve liked it a lot more, but really it was not only her first time doing freestyle, she also exercised that she does have some patience stored within her. Honestly, both of my parents have expressed that they don’t have any patience at all, but yet they really took their time to get their ideas in order. It was a lot easier to convince my mom that she didn’t need to be perfect with it than dad, because for us we got through our pumpkins faster than he did and he also became very messy too!
In his defense though, he not only went off a totally different picture we did and on top of that, everything was bigger and since he likes everything to go right, it was very critical of his handiwork. Since we only gave faces to three of the pumpkins, I was next on the latter and I think I mirrored what each of my parents did with their pumpkins. I kept myself contained in my mind and thoughts but I really attempted to find a medium to both of them and I think I did a pretty good job after not painting a face for a long time.
As my dad was working on this lone tomato looking pumpkin, my mom was busy with creating the “M” on our final two pumpkins. Since she went back with the blue one, it hadn’t dried enough before she started on the white so on the picture you can kind of see how the letter blending into the background a bit, but thankfully she was able to add two coats on it so it is readable and personally, I think it looks cool like that. It is unique with the marbleizations of all three colors. The brown one also has a cool factor too, two of pumpkins had these great greenish veins going from the bottom to the top and unfortunately they were painted over with the red pumpkin but I guess mom thought it was neat too, so it almost turned out to look like a bowling ball in a way!
It was pretty fun and interesting to do a craft with my folks, especially since one has confessed that they are not a big fan of these types of things, but has painted quite a few pumpkins this month! After we finished our creations, my dad has made me a desk out of a Styrofoam so I can have an accessible table for my future projects. I am really happy that he didn’t make it before the pumpkins because I don’t it could take all of the weight of the some of them!
I think I am officially done with this post. I’m not sure when I will be doing another project, but when I do, you know I’ll try to put it on here for you. So, I hope you have enjoyed this crazy adventure that happened in the middle of October and here are the rest of the photos that were taken in the course of two days!
Have you been able to do any type of DIY or crafty projects for Halloween or fall in general? It doesn’t have to be with paint like ours, but I would still like to see your end result. Send me your pictures through Facebook or Instagram please!
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