October 26, 2011

My Pumpkins

My pumpkin this year isn’t really a pumpkin. It’s an Ikea lantern, which isn’t on their website anymore.  I have two of these lanterns with rounded globes. pumpkin2I decided to paint the insides of the globes a bright orange by swirling the paint around inside – much harder than it sounds. It took two coats to get the consistency right. It needed to be watery enough that it would move around and cover the inside, but not too runny so that it slid right off.pumpkin3I found some images on-line and then enlarged them. I didn’t feel like hooking up my printer, so I laid a piece of paper on the computer screen and traced the images. Then I cut them out and roughly traced them onto the globe.pumpkin 1Following that, I painted the images with black paint, doing two coats to make sure it was thick enough and the light didn’t shine through.pumpkin6I can use these lanterns for the next few days without worrying about the pumpkins getting moldy and soft. I can also store them and use them again next year, or just scrub them out and use them for lanterns again.

I also have a big green alien for the front porch.

8 comments:

  1. Wow, those lanterns are fabulous. I hope you save them and do not scrub them out! Thank you for showing these.

    Francie

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  2. So resourceful Meg, one of the best Haloween's I have ever spent in my life was in the USA, they know how to do it!
    Di
    x
    PS: My eyes turn green when I cry too!

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  3. Those are really cute. I hate carving pumpkins. I have/had those plug in pumpkins but I can't find them since the move. I did find some Mr Potatohead-type features for pumpkins that worked well with my 2 year-old but your lanterns are much more chic.

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  4. What a brilliant idea. These are unique and really turned out amazing. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. HOW CLEAVER you are + love them. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com

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  6. The lanterns are so cool!

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  7. Fantastic! What a fine idea. I say this after having struggled with the paring knives and serving spoons needed to make the kids' jack-o'-lanterns. Swirling and tracing sound so civilised compared...

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