Fall Farmhouse Decor – DIY Pumpkins

With the return of the PSL (pumpkin spice latte), Starbucks has decreed that it is officially Fall. So I decided that I might as well start prepping my fall farmhouse decor. I should let you know that Fall is my absolute favourite season, which is saying a lot because I am a Christmas junkie. I love the crisp air, pumpkin everything, buffalo check and getting ready to harvest my garden.

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Another reason I love fall is because this is the first season when I start to decorate. So with my first pumpkin spice latte in hand let’s begin with this easy little fall farmhouse decor DIY.

As far as DIYs go this is super easy. It’s great to do on a rainy day, watching Netflix and maybe sipping some wine. It’s low stress and there is really no way to mess it up. You just keep blending the paint until you get the look you are going for. So let’s take a look at what you are going to need to get this show on the road.

The Necessities

• Little fake pumpkins
• Synthetic steel wool
• Acrylic white paint
• Acrylic paint in your choice of colour
• Foam paint brushes
• Newspaper
• Small stones, aquarium gravel or sand in a cup (optional but really helpful)
• Pencil (optional but really helpful)

So the best place to start this little DIY is with a trip to your local Dollarama (or another dollar store). I was there the other day and snagged some of these offensively orange little pumpkins. I mean, I’m not hating on orange as it is the main colour of fall but nothing needs to be quite this orange or this shiny!

Personally, I love muted colours so these bright, shiny orange pumpkins aren’t going to work for me. I had visions of white and light dull blue for my fall farmhouse decor with a sprinkling of black and white buffalo check. So I am keeping with that colour scheme for my pumpkins. You choose whatever colours are going to work for your style. I sure do love the “chalk” paints!

Once you have your colours picked out. Cover your work surface with a good layer of newspaper and let’s get this show on the road! The first thing I did was to carefully take out the plastic stem. You can either save these or replace them at the end with real stems if you have some. I managed to save a few from my little butternut squashes. Anyway, the ones that come on the pumpkins have little barbs so they do not want to come out. Just take it slow and you should be ok.

After that task was done I moved on to scuffing the surface of the shiny pumpkins. The paint won’t stick well to the shiny layer so do your best to get rid of as much of it as you can. But don’t scuff it too hard as we don’t want to go through the paint layer.

Next is adding the base layer of white paint. This is necessary so that we have a neutral colour to add the final paint colour on top of. If you don’t do this then there is a good chance your final colour will not be true to the colour you were going for. This is also where we start to make use of a pencil. Making use of the hole left from the stem, insert the pencil into the hole.

Now you can paint around the whole pumpkin without getting paint onto your fingers (and off of the pumpkin). Once the first layer is done I carefully stick the other of the pencil into the cup filled with gravel or sand. This way it can dry without the paint coming off. I made the mistake of putting it down on the newspaper to dry the first time… So I ended up with the pumpkin stuck to the newspaper. I was able to salvage it with some extra sanding and repainting, but best to avoid the whole ordeal and use the pencil and cup technique.

Next it’s time to move on from having a “flat” colour. I wanted depth to my little pumpkins so I started adding dabs of colours to the grooves and then using the foam brush I blended them in.

If the colours come out darker than you wanted then just go back and blend in some more white (or whatever your base colour is). I flipped back and forth until I ended up with the colour I wanted.

Once you are happy with the colour all you have left to do is attach the stem. You have two options here. You can either attach back the little plastic stems, or if you have any real stems lying around then you can easily glue them on. This is great for making them look more realistic. I got sidetracked with some rose gold paint so I obviously abandoned the realistic look…on two of the pumpkins at least! But a girl’s gotta do what a girl‘s gotta do. Especially when it comes to fall farmhouse decor.

With the stems back in place all you have left to do is to incorporate them into your fall farmhouse decor! You could include them in an epic thanksgiving tablescape. Put them onto a mantel or include them in your fall decor on your sideboard.

Do you have epic plans for your fall farmhouse decor this season? Do you dream of yards of black and white buffalo check? Maybe an old milk can filled to the brim with wheat? What do you have in mind for your own fall decor?