For years I’ve wanted personalised pumpkin decor in our home, but the cost has always put me off. When browsing 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
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?
