For years I’ve wanted personalised pumpkin decor in our home, but the cost has always put me off. When window shopping online, I was looking at around £30 for one medium-size pumpkin to have our family name on. Don’t get me wrong, they look great, but I couldn’t justify £30 on one piece of pumpkin decor. So, I decided to make one, or four, myself for around the same price and they turned out even better than I imagined. You can find the total cost of this project at the bottom of this post.
I went to Hobbycraft and bought four of their ceramic pumpkins in three sizes: one large, two medium but tall ones, and one small. I then bought one tube of each colour acrylic paint I’d need: white, black and metallic gold. Acrylic paint worked far better with this which may be an obvious thing to some, but when I got home I found we still had a can of gold spray paint left from when we decorated our home office and decided to give that a whirl. It did not work. It just flaked off and was a waste of time, and spray paint, so back to the acrylics I went!
I started by painting one coat of white acrylic paint over each pumpkin as a base. These ceramic pumpkins are quite chalky, so this was to get rid of that texture. Once dry, I painted two coats of metallic gold acrylic paint over each pumpkin. Once dried again, I decided to use a black marker instead of paint, to personalise each pumpkin.
This is when I knew I needed to rethink it all as I did not like the outcome. Friends told me they did, but once I dislike something, it’s very difficult to convince me otherwise or for it to grow on me. The gold paint was too yellow-toned and I think a bit much on its own, so back to the drawing board…
A couple weeks later, as we had a two-week trip to Cornwall followed by various other plans, I finally redid the pumpkins and they look sooo much better! I painted them all black, so I finally made use of the black acrylic paint I bought, and left the stalks in the gold for a contrast colour. I then ordered these personalised vinyl stickers from Sticky Licky Studio* on Etsy to transfer onto each pumpkin. The finished result was worth spending the extra time and pennies.
How much did everything cost?
Pumpkins, Hobbycraft
Large: £6
Medium: £10 (£5 each)
Small: £4
Pebeo Studio Acrylic Paints, Hobbycraft
Titanium (White): £2 – find here
Mars Black: £2 – find here
Iridescent (Gold): £2 – find here
(all on sale at the time of purchasing)
Personalised Vinyl Stickers, Sticky Licky Studio on Etsy UK
The Caton’s: £2.67
Mummy: £1.52
Daddy: £1.52
Lily: £1.15
(20% sale at the time of purchasing. Find here*)
Total cost: £32.86
So, for an extra £2.86 I managed to get four personalised ceramic pumpkins to add to my home’s pumpkin decor for Autumn, and I get to say I decorated them! What do you think?
*affiliate links
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