Coastal & Color Block Pumpkins

Sometimes it’s hard to get excited for fall in Charleston when it’s still 100 degrees outside. As if mother nature realized that fall started this week, the temperatures have dropped a few degrees, and jeans are starting to make sense to wear instead of shorts (no sleeves yet though).

On that note, I started thinking about getting the place looking like it’s fall and also getting ready to host our Supper Club for October (more to come there). Naturally, I took to Pinterest for some creative and budget friendly ways to decorate for fall (check out my Seasonal pins). First up, making some coastal pumpkins for around the house!

Color Block Pumpkins

What you’ll need:

Fake pumpkins
Acrylic paint
Painter’s tape

Coastal Pumpkins

What you’ll need:

Fake pumpkins
Spray paint
Twine
Shells
Hot glue gun

After work I headed to Michael’s to check out their fake pumpkin selection and bought a few different sizes (also on sale, woo!). For this project I didn’t need hollow pumpkins since they weren’t going to be “carved,” but that’s what I ended up getting anyways. I also got some different color paints, and even a light chalk paint. After seeing a few ideas online, I decided to do some pumpkins in a color block pattern and others simply solid.

I spray painted one pumpkin when I was working on the trophies since I liked the blue color I had. After a few coats of spray paint and drying over night in the garage, it was put to the side until I finished painting the others.

I decided to try the color block pattern on 2 of the pumpkins, so I got my roll of painter’s tape and started making triangular shapes on the pumpkins, making sure the tape got in the creases (so the paint wouldn’t spill through). I ended up with 2 different sized triangles on both sides of each pumpkin.

Then I painted each triangle a different color in the blue / teal / silver / white color overall color scheme I was going for. This was slightly easier said then done because I got paint all over myself and managed to smear it on the pumpkins and had to touch them up a few times.. oops.

While I waited on the paint to dry, I painted a 4th pumpkin in light blue chalk paint. Then I cooked dinner while everything dried, and started the 2nd coat on all three pumpkins after I ate.

The next day the goal was to finish the pumpkins. I wanted to add ~2 more triangles each on the color block pumpkins, plus do something else to the solid ones. I taped off a few more triangles to fill in the gaps and painted them.

Then I took the painter’s tape off and surveyed the pumpkins. There was still some paint that bled under the tape, but overall they look pretty good!

To spruce up the solid pumpkins and give them more of a coastal feel, I wrapped the stems in twine — using hot glue to hold it in place, and added shells on some of the ends.