DIY: Chevron & Gold Pumpkins

If you know me even for five minutes…you probably know I love sparkly shiny things. And gold, all things gold! If given a can of gold spray paint, I will go to town on almost everything I own! (Thankfully, I have a spouse who knows when to reign me in when I start to consider painting the dog gold.) So, it is no surprise that when the holidays come around, I find even more excuses to make everything shiny, sparkly, and festive!

Enter my gold pumpkins! Last year I spray painted real pumpkins gold and let me tell you, they were beautiful!!! (And economical!) But after a long fall sitting in the middle of our dining room table, a weird smell begin brewing in our house that took us about a week to track down…the pumpkins! Who knew they were rotting under all that pretty gold paint! Yikes! And as a result of the rotting pumpkin incident of 2011, the spouse has banned me from spray painting anymore real pumpkins (or at least letting them sit in the house for 2 months)! This limitation on my craftiness frustrated me at first, but then it led me to this year’s gorgeous (and nonperishable) fall project!

So, today, I wanted to share my DIY Chevron and Gold Pumpkins! A relatively inexpensive project that is super easy, quick, and something you can use year after year! (Feel free to use real pumpkins, just be sure to chuck them before they start to smell!)

What you will need:

• Foam Craft Pumpkins of various sizes (I found these pretty white pumpkins at Target and fell in love with the white, but you can use any color pumpkins!)
• Metallic Gold Spray Paint
• Face Mask (if you are preggo like me!)
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Painters Tape
• Plastic drop cloths (or garbage bags will do!)

The DIY Deets:

Prep all your pumpkins and supplies.

(Don’t mind the extra supplies of spray adhesive and gold glitter. Those are for another sparkly project!)

Start by using your painter’s tape to tape off all your pumpkin stems. (I really liked the natural look of the stems and wanted a mix-match of white with gold, so I wanted to preserve the original look of the stems.)

Now, you need to decide which pumpkins will be chevron and which pumpkins will be all gold. If you decide to paint some pumpkins completely gold, then you don’t need to do any other taping to them. Put them aside, until it is time to paint. For chevron pumpkins, use the painter’s tape to create chevron zig zag stripes around your pumpkin. (Keep in mind, that any place you put tape will not be painted and be the original color of the pumpkin.) It helps to decide ahead of time how many stripes you want on your pumpkin so you can space them out ahead of time. From here, I took the ‘wing-it’ approach to creating my chevron stripes. I used a pencil to draw very light lines around the pumpkin where all the tips of my zig zags would meet to make it somewhat uniform, but other than that I was okay with my chevron stripes being a little imperfect. If you striving for ultimate perfection, just create a grid on your pumpkin with your pencil, where all your zig zag points will line up and meet. So tape away until you are happy with the look of your chevron stripes.

Once all your taping is done, it is time to paint! Prep your painting space by laying down your plastic drop clothes (or garbage bags) in a well ventilated area. (I painted in the garage with the large door open the whole time to ensure ultimate ventilation! Just don’t mind the other clutter in our garage.) Place your pumpkins to be painted on your drop clothes and get your spray paint ready! 

Now, it’s mask time! (I’m including this photo so you all know that this preggo took all the proper safety precautions!)

Here is the really easy part: Shake up your spray paint really well and go to town! Cover your pumpkins as best you can in a nice even coat of paint. 

Let your pumpkins dry about 15 minutes until they are dry to the touch before you add your second coat. With your second coat of spray paint, make sure to turn over your pumpkins to get any spots that were left unpainted with the first coat. (2 coats total should be all you need.)

After giving your pumpkins 2 fully covered coats of gold spray paint, leave them overnight to dry. You don’t want to start pulling tape off too early and ruin your designs. Once your pumpkins are nice and dry, it is time to peel off all your taper’s paint. Peel all the stems off and then your chevron stripes to reveal all the prettiness!

Voila! You are all done! Now, just find a nice little spot for your beauties and admire all the gold chevron goodness!

What crafty fall projects are you up to? Let me know about any projects you have up your sleeve this fall in the comments! (Or if you make some chevron pumpkins of your own, tell me!) Happy Fall!