Sep 28, 2008

Pumpkin Project

One of the blogs I like to read is by the wonderful Kimba , whose weapon of choice is spray paint.I had kind of forgotten about spray paint, or put it aside, since it's not really "Primitive", now is it? After seeing what Kimba and some others have done with it, and considering the other things I manage to qualify as "Primitive", I have decided to reconsider. So at the risk of losing my somewhat shaky "Primitive" credentials, here's a little project that's quick, fun, and cheap.






Here's what I started with:

Pumpkins and glass candlesticks from the Dollar store.
I would have liked to use different size Pumpkins, but this was all they had, and the price was right.

Spray paint - some I had had already, but I bought a can of Metallic spray in as close to Bronze as I could find

Glue - glue gun, E-600, or white glue, like Alenes

Spanish Moss

Ribbon, strips of fabric, raffia


I've seen some black Pumpkins recently, I can't remember where, and thought they were just terrific. So I started by spraying the Pumpkins with flat black, and spraying the glass candlesticks with the bronze color metallic. That stuff they always tell you about using lots of light coats of paint is true, by the way.

Also, try to pick a day when it's not windy. You can see the newspaper flapping in this photo, which adds to the adventure.














After the candlestick had a good coat of the metallic,
I used the flat black to kind of "dust" over it, to
make it less shiny, and more weathered looking.








Here are the two main parts after painting.
















This is the point where I start putting things
together temporarily, and standing back to decide
if I like what I see, and what it needs. I added
the moss around the stem, and then glued the
Pumpkin to the candlestick, and glued the
moss in place.









After looking at these for a minute, I decided one way to change the size would be to stack two together, so I
used a pencil to make a hole in the bottom of the
top Pumpkin, added moss between the two, and glued,
using the stem of the bottom pumpkin to help
secure them.










Here's the finished project, in the dining room. I tied torn
strips of black and white check homespun around the top
of the candlesticks.

Consider this a jumping off place. There are so many things
you could do starting with this. Different colors, lots of glitter,
different bases, ribbons, raffia, paper letters, and on and on.

If you're not taking photos and writing about it, it should take
about a half hour, start to finish. Have fun! The Dogs and I did!

6 comments:

  1. Jan...what a great idea, and they turned out beautifully! Thanks for sharing that with all of us - it's great to see new ideas...

    Janelle

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  2. Jan, I love your idea and do plan to try it, thanks for the tutorial, hope you'll do more. Didn't you last year tell us about how to make little faux Christmas trees look primitive. I'd love to see that done as a tutorial. I was just thinking about that recently and the timing would be great. Keep the ideas coming, I love them!

    ~Diane~

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  3. Jan...those are beautiful! What a great idea. Thanks for the how-to! BTW..your blog looks wonderful! Susan

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  4. Oh how neat ! I love this idea. You can be sure I will be making some later today. Your blog is off to a fantastic start Jan !~~Pam

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  5. what a fun place... I love the look too Jan - so elegant!!!

    your blog is fantabulous ... I'm gonna be checking in more often !!

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  6. Great idea! I love how they turned out - and they are definitely primitive in my book :)
    Thanks so much for sharing each step, otherwise I would never consider trying it.
    Now where is that spray paint....

    Blessings, Patti

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