I love fall. The colors are vibrant and fun, the air smells like cinnamon and nutmeg and the best part are the pumpkins. I would say the cooler weather plays a part in it too, but I live in Houston, so that would be a lie. However, last summer while I was touring The Pioneer Woman’s lodge – yes… yes.. THAT lodge – I saw adorable wildflower painted craft pumpkins chilling in her supply closet and I fell in love with them.
Here’s the pumpkins that were at the Pioneer Woman’s Lodge:
Cute right? And yes, that’s a Mackenzie-Child’s cake plate just hanging out next to them as if I wouldn’t drool on it out in the open like that…. There was also a huge storage bin full of chocolate baking chips. I should have just moved right into the Lodge at that moment but I didn’t have the guts. Next time, I’m taking my luggage and dogs. If you want to read about our trip to the Lodge, click here.
I knew that making these pumpkins would be on my crafty to-do for this fall. I started with just one pumpkin, one of the carvable craft pumpkins from the hobby store.
I would sit and paint a flower or two whenever I had some free time. It wound up being a really fun project because I could pick it up when I had a minute and then put it back on the shelf when I needed to do something else.
I do love how they turned out but I know what some of you are going to say;
“But I don’t know how to paint flowers!”
I get it but painting flowers are actually very easy and practicing is so much fun. Flowers are great items to paint if you’re not a painter because there are so many combinations, colors and types of flowers that it’s pretty hard to mess it up.
If you look at the pumpkins from the Lodge, you’ll see that one is all sunflowers. So today let me walk you through how to paint a simple sunflower that looks like you spent a ton of time on it. Add a few green leaves and vines and you’ll have your own cute sunflower pumpkin.
How to paint a sunflower:
Step 1 – pick two similar colors for the petals of the sunflower. I picked a yellow and an orange. Using an angled brush, put one color on one side of the brush and the other color on the opposite side.
Step 2 – The pointed side of the brush will be at the top of the petal. Put the brush at the top and pull down in a bit of an arc, putting pressure on the brush as you pull down. Pick up your brush and place it back at the top of the petal, doing the same thing but arcing the opposite direction to make a complete petal shape. Fill in the middle lightly with the paint that is already on the brush.
If you need help making the round shape of the flower, draw a large circle with a pencil and a smaller circle in the exact middle of it. The outer circle will be your guide for the outside edges of the petals and the bottom of the pencil should reach into the middle circle. When your flower is done, erase the pencil.
The circle shape doesn’t have to be perfect because extremely perfect flowers are very rare.
Step 3 – Make the middle of the flower. I like to mix two shades of brown together to do this. Then place your angled brush, the same one will work, in the middle of the flower shape. Hold one side of the brush bristles in place at the middle of the flower and swirl the other edge around to make a perfect circle.
Step 4 – Take the darkest brown paint you have and using the opposite end of the paint brush, dab little circles of dark brown paint into the still wet paint in the middle of the flower. You can do it all over the middle or just a circle of dots around the outside edge of the middle of the flower.
It’s easy and fast! The best news is that anyone can do it!
You still have time to make these wildflower pumpkins or Pin this idea to use next fall!
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After you are done painting the pumpkin, I recommend spraying it with the spray paint polycrylic to keep the paint from scratching when it’s in storage.
Have fun crafting!
The pumpkins are beautiful, thanks for sharing the how-to!!!