'paint chip' painted pumpkins

a recent post shared the paper paint chip pumpkins i made, 

and this project was hatched at the same time!

three styrofoam pumpkins were easily painted in the same style as paint chips,

and the multi-hued stripes just make me smile.

continue reading for tips on how to make these easy painted pumpkins... 

the color palette here is a mix of varied orange tones...

that's one of my own painted paint chip paper versions in the photo -

 you'll find a link to my tutorial at bottom of this post so you can make your own!

three pumpkins from last years' stash got a thick white base coat.

then i used regular craft paints to mix up eight different hues of orange/peach/coral,

and started painting stripes onto the pumpkins...

they aren't perfectly proportioned stripes, but that's ok. i'm not interested in perfection.

my blow drier helped the process move along quickly,

so all three of these took me less than half an hour to paint.

i touched up the white lines at the end.

for interest, i mixed up the placement of the paint hues:

the middle pumpkin's stripes run light at the top to dark at the bottom.

it's stem continues the paint chip pattern.

the tiny pumpkin's 'stripes' run along each ridge, with white lines in the grooves,

and the stem is white.

the large pumpkin's stripes are darkest at the top, lightest at the bottom,
and that funky stem is a piece of wood that fell off of a wood birdhouse!


colorful as they are, i thought maybe a nice 'prop' would be plain leaves -
so i traced some cookie cutters shaped like leaves onto plain white copy paper,
cut them out, added a few quick folds...
and they had the dimension needed to make this arrangement sing.

i really like the crisp, modern, playful feel of this project.
they would be perfect paired with white ceramic pumpkins and vases
on a table or mantel for a contemporary interior.
and yes, if you like neutrals, you CAN paint these in pale vanilla or tan tones!

[ btw,the styro pumpkins i used came from Dollar Tree, Target, and Michael's last year ]

links to previous posts mentioned above:

paper paint chip pumpkins

painted paint chip paper tutorial


shared online:

funky junk interiors / diy salvaged junk projects #545




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