Pumpkins

 

My friend Katie (blogger of  Walks Like Rain) brought Young House Love's recent pumpkin post to my attention a few days ago thinking Michael and Sophie would enjoy the ideas.  As I confessed to her then, I hadn't put much thought yet into what we would do with our pumpkins, partly because I know there are tons of ideas out there.  I knew I would be overwhelmed by the choices the moment I started searching.

 

As you can see above, we gave all three of the YHL projects a go in one form or another this weekend (please ignore the visibly wet Mod Podge on Michael's pumpkin--I was a little eager to get pictures).  The ideas were age appropriate for my buddies, perfectly cute, and I saw no reason to consider other options.

 

 

The projects were also so simple that I didn't even need to look back at the post after reading it on my lunch break a few days ago.  I easily remembered the basics and the helpful details like using a roll of electrical tape to cut two sizes of the tissue paper polka-dots for the Mod Podged pumpkins. 

  I gave Michael plain green and green dotted paper, and Sophie used plain purple and green sparkle paper.  For both of the projects that involved color, I stuck with green and purple (and orange) as the color scheme to tie the bunch together. 

 

For the painted pumpkins, I tweaked the idea of taping off designs by using some old letter stickers instead of tape and spelled out "Happy Halloween" to be revealed after painting and removing the stickers later on.  I bought a package of paint brush pens for the kids but was a little disappoined that they really aren't a whole lot different from markers.  They were fairly mess free, though! 

 

We did all three projects nearly simultaneously.  I prepped by washing the pumpkins, gathering the materials, cutting the dots, and sticking on the stickers ahead of time, all within about an hour of bringing the kids out to get started.  While the kids and I Mod Podged, Mike carved our traditional jack-o-lantern and roasted the seeds (I drew the simple face at his request).  We did give both kids a chance to play with the pumpkin guts, of course.  Sophie loved it.  Michael said it was gross and asked to get back to his "stickers." 

 



 

I had planned to apply the Mod Podge myself and have the kids just stick the dots where they wanted them, but Michael and Sophie were drawn to the sponge brushes.  In true toddler fashion they insisted on doing most of the project completely by themselves.

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Eventually I declared the polka-dot pumpkins done and lured Sophie and Michael away with the painting project.  It was a good thing we had that to move on to because they would have glued and glued forever, I think. It was a hit!

 



 

Sophie:  What you doing, Daddy?

Mike: I'm carving our pumpkin.  See?

Sophie:  Oh, yes.  That's very cool.

 

 

We had quite an enjoyable time decorating our family of pumpkins, and I'm pleased with the end results.  However, I might add more dots while the kids are sleeping tonight.  It looked pretty fun.  :)