Pallet Pumpkin Tutorial -- A Free Craft

After recently having done some more of my famous "dumpster diving" with a friend, we came across this pallet (along with some other finds I hope to do something with later). 

There is lots of craftiness across blogland lately where old wood is transformed into a pumpkin -- and I thought this would be perfect!!  I Love pumpkin decor items because you can display them for such a long time.  Since I am in dire need of more fall decorations and wanted to do it on the cheap -- that makes me resourceful.  Check out Someday Crafts to see where I got my inspiration to even try this...  Here is my materials list:

Dumpster Pallet

Craft Paint
Raffia

Other than the Pallet (which I stole from the dumpster) everything else was in our stash of crafts so the entire project was essentially free -- just the kind of craft I love!

I got out Paul's power tools (gotta love 'em) and started cutting.  I knew the basic shape I was going for and I knew I needed to leave enough board on the backside to hold it all together

I then got out my paints (Skyler helped me on this part).  We had green for the "stem" but didn't have any orange -- sooooo -- I mixed red and marigold together and thought the color turned out pretty perfect.  I spread the paint on pretty thin as I wanted the finished product to look antiqued as opposed to being polished, which is so not me.


To finish it all off I used a sander to distress and soften the edges a bit.

Below is a little pumpkin I made from some of the scraps.  This little guy is perfect for inside!  I used the same basic premise but used some wire to make the "lines" of the pumpkin and some scrap material for the "stem."

Linked up to:  Hoo's Got Talent

and Someday Crafts and U-Create Crafts and Remodelaholic and Fingerprints on the Fridge

Featured at the Jon Walters Family Blog