Give Cheap Dollar Store Pumpkins a Quick Makeover for Pennies

by Knelso18

4 Materials

10 Minutes

Easy

If you have walked in to your local dollar tree lately you will find that they offer a ton of decorations and craft ideas. You have to sometimes look outside the box and see what these $1.00 items could become with alittle paint or work.

This is what I did a couple of weeks ago. I found these styrofoam bright orange pumpkins. I bought 3 of these light weight gems knowing that I can use them somewhere.

But I’m gonna be honest, I hated the brightness of these pumpkins.

So, here’s what I did with them in order to put them outside my doorway And achieve that antique look. (I walked into target today and they were selling pumpkins just like this, antiques, for $14.99 Each! I don’t have that kind of money to spend on small decorations.)

give cheap dollar store pumpkins a quick makeover for pennies

Here are the bright styrofoam pumpkins from the dollar store and my antique glaze from Walmart. What I wanted to do was lessen the brightness of the color and give a more rustic look.

Take a cheap paint brush and drip in glaze.

Apply a thin layer of the glaze on the pumpkin. I did the whole pumpkin before wiping off. You could do sections if you wanted too.

I wore gloves, again your choice. This step I wipe off the glaze lightly. I wasnt too aggressive with it as I wanted a lot more brown on my pumpkins.

Here is what they looked like after I wiped off some glaze.

Just to show the finished pumpkins next to the bright untouched one.

Being I wanted these to go outside, I needed to make them heavy or able to stay where I put them despite the wind. So I grabbed bamboo sticks. I warmed up the trusty glue gun. I put glue along the top half of the stick then put through the bottom of the pumpkin.

Like this...

Then added more glue on the outside. I was impressed how solid and in place the sticks were.

All 3 pumpkins dried and sticks in place. Ready to go outside.

After picture of my porch with my new pumpkins upgrade. I have pushed the sticks into my bales of hay and I have them a good push and they are not going anywhere in the wind. Still have decor to add but wanted to post this idea.

Enjoy...

Before picture of my porch before adding my antiqued pumpkins...

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1 question

Judy on Oct 27, 2018

These are great! Do you think spray painting them would adhere to the Styrofoam? Planning on painting them gold for a fall 50th anniversary party!

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