We all know I had to make some sort of pumpkin related craft this season, and here it is.  Last year I made some color block pumpkins, and mummy mason jars, so I had plenty of fall and Halloween stuff to put out, but when I saw this pumpkin on Pinterest, I knew I had to try to decoupage a pumpkin!

Decoupaged Map Pumpkin

What you’ll need:

• Craft pumpkin
• Design printed on paper
• Scissors
• Mod Podge
• Foam brush

Apparently when you go searching for craft pumpkins in late October it’s slim pickings.  I struck out at Michael’s, but finally found a few smaller ones at Hobby Lobby.  My goal was to find a larger, white pumpkin, and I left with a short, orange one.

Since I was going to put a map on my pumpkin, I didn’t want any orange coming through, so the first thing I needed to do was spray paint it.  I wrapped the stem in painter’s tape, and used the rest of my white spray paint to get rid of the orange.

While the spray paint was drying, I printed some Charleston harbor chart maps on normal printer paper since this was what I was going to put on the pumpkin.  When your map is ready, cut it into 1/2″ strips.  If you have a larger pumpkin, then 1″ strips will work, but smaller pumpkin = thinner strips.

Apply a thin coat of mod podge to the back of a strip of paper, then adhere it to the pumpkin starting at the top by the stem.

Slowly work your way around the pumpkin until the map is completely on the pumpkin.  This gets tricky as you have to work with the curves and indentions of the pumpkin, which is why smaller strips were key for my lil guy.

Also, try to push out any wrinkles, so the paper is as flat as possible on the pumpkin.  I made tiny folds in some places to try to keep the map lined up as best I could, and conform to the curves.

I put a second map on the other side of the pumpkin, and filled in the area between the 2 maps with strips of land and water to try to blend the 2 maps together.

Once the pumpkin is covered in maps, apply a light coat of mod podge on top of the paper to seal it in and give it a finished look.

There was definitely a learning curve, since I’d never decoupaged anything before.  I got better as I progressed, but as my friend Lisa pointed out, you only need one side to look great!  I’m impressed by people that have crazy patterns and get them to line up perfect with no wrinkles — I must not have enough patience for that.

Now I wonder what else I could decoupage…