Upcycling A Foam Pumpkin With Paint And Pretty Fall Silk Flowers.

So this foam pumpkin was in rough shape when I unpacked my Autumn bin this season. But I really like the size and since I don’t like throwing anything out I decided to take a stab at making it over.

The paint was bubbled and coming off in random sections so I chipped off as much as I could easily get off and left the remainder alone.

To start I pulled out a white and gold acrylic craft paints and mixed them 50/50 so my base color wouldn’t be stark white or to light. So I thought.

As I painted I felt the color was still going to be lighter then I wanted the base to be.

To deepen up the base, I mixed a basic brown with white and while the first coat was still wet I dabbed the paint on instead of brushing it on the pumpkin to create texture. New texture to help blend in the existing texture. I still wasn’t sure in what direction I was taking this. I decided to let it dry overnight and think about it. There is always Pintrest if I got stumped:)

The next day I found there were areas on the pumpkin where the paint soaked in and left some openings on the surface. The paint had gotten very dull and overall didn’t look any better. I thought about changing direction and possibly decoupaging and forgetting about paint but after going through my napkins and paints I decided to try more paint.

Once again I used acrylic craft paint. This time I put the first coat on VERY thick. I started with a light sand. Then while the paint was wet I blended in white and gold. I went back and forth between those to colors. I only used small amounts of paint on my brush at a time and added the colors randomly in up and down strokes until I had a look and coverage that I liked. To get more depth I came in with a very dark brown then left it to dry overnight. The paint was thick. But each layer was looker better then the previous.

This is how it looked the next day. Now I felt like the roughness looked more like the skin of an imperfect pumpkin.

To bring more interest, I again decided to add a bit more paint. I went with some green, orange, light brown, dark brown and light gold metallic. I painted in up and down motions with the contour of the pumpkin.  To shear out areas that were to dark I used a chip brush and dry brushed the various paint colors.

To dry brush I dipped my brush and wiped off paint onto the piece of parchment paper to defuse the color and swiped the brushes using up and down motions and also used tapping motions to lighten and darken whatever areas I felt needed it.

This was a great piece to play with and try painting techniques on! Great for someone like me who likes to play around and not worry about messing  it up:)

If you would like to see the painting process I will be putting up a video on my You Tube channel Our High Street Home.

This is where I decided to stop. I had thought about keeping this more neutral but it wouldn’t go with what I have going on throughout the rest of my house this season.

I found some beautiful stems for 40% off at Joanns and  I mixed them in with some of the florals I already had at home.

After I had my pumpkin fitted with floral foam I began to play around with the arrangement.

Here’s a look at my finished arrangement that I now have displayed in my dining room. Not to shabby for a foam pumpkin that had seen better days, sale rack florals and craft paints I had on hand from previous projects:)

I’m so glad I gave this pumpkin a second chance:)

Thank you for stopping by,

Roni♥