This week I thought I would do some pumpkin painting to liven up the decor around here. Since painting them keeps them from rotting to early, we could enjoy them now since we have to wait until the last minute to carve the jack-o-lanters. The warm weather down here in Florida does not keep carved pumpkins for very long. Although we will for sure carve some pumpkins, they will just be lit for a couple days. These painted ones will look nice these next couple weeks and can even be used for Thanksgiving too.

Last weekend we went to a Pumpkin Festival in Bradenton Florida. It was way bigger than I thought. Way more than just a pumpkin patch with hayrides like in the midwest. It was a whole fair! We picked out some pumpkins and I got some super cute Pumpkin patch pictures, only to realize in the car on the way home I had forgotten my memory card so we got zero pictures. Oh well. We were pretty tired and didn’t get any little pumpkins for decorating either. Luckily this week Jake and I found a wonderful market with lots of cute pumpkins and fruits and veggies to choose from. So I got some more pumpkins to paint and decorate with.

To make sure you get a good pumpkin you must hold them, and pat them and try to pick them up!

They even had a giant pumpkin that you could take your picture with at Bearss Groves market! Jake was into the skeleton guy. 

After we got the pumpkins to paint all washed off, I thought Jake man might color some pumpkin pictures for his grandmas and grandpas while I painted. That was an epic fail of an idea. He is still to little to use crayons without trying to eat them. I had to delay the painting until nap time like normal. (And people always ask if I am still painting…yes but its extremely slow now with crayon eating man!)

Before we had to stop until nap time, I got a base coat on a few of them. This one I used a white linen color.

Gold on this one.

For this one, I cut out a circle stencil using a scrap piece of paper to make the gold glitter polk-a-dots. The glitter blast spray paint looks cool but is a huge mess! It took many tries to make sure the dots weren’t goopy or smeared. 

I hand painted this pumpkin with gold puffy paint for a neat effect.

And a base coat of chalk board paint. A few of these pumpkins are fake pumpkins I had picked up from Michael’s. I figured I could paint them and keep them year after year. 

^The mess. I am a very messy crafter/painter.^

This pumpkin basket I found at Michael’s also. I painted the face on one side for Halloween and then I can turn it around for a Thanksgiving basket!

The first coat of paint on the face pumpkins…

and some more drying…

And here are my finished painted pumpkins…

^Chalkboard Pumpkin painted first with chalkboard paint then chalkboard marker to get the chalkboard effect.^

The gold and the black puffy paint pumpkins. 

I put a few non painted and painted on the front porch of a cute little display.

^Jake helping arrange my pumpkin display.^

And the face pumpkins… These were painted freehand so I don’t have any stencils to share.

^Thank you Jake man for looking after the face pumpkins!^

I hope you enjoyed and were inspired for some Halloween fun next week. I know we can’t wait to go Trick-or-Treating for the first time ever! Until next week, XOXO