Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Fall Crafties!

I have so many things pinned that I want to do, bake, and make, but thanks to some well-used naptime last week and Erica's tutorial, I found myself with some slightly cooler temps and some even cooler Fall decorations. Forgive my lack of as-you-go photos. She really covers all that, so jump on over to check out these NO SEW fabric pumpkins. I am all about simplicity for Fall decor and like a little orange, a few leaves, and lots of pumpkins (not jack-o-lanterns but pumpkins!).  Until Wyatt is old enough to give a flip, we won't do ghosts, spiders, and all the sparkly Halloween hoopla. I like items that I can take out October 1 (or ok, late September to coax out cooler Fall weather) and leave out until Christmas decorations come out right after Thanksgiving. Erica's pumpkins sounded like a great idea!


Materials Needed:

• Fat Quarters (18" x 21"), you will use one fat quarter per pumpkin -- I had to cut these as Hobby Lobby doesn't! 
• Iron
• Toilet paper roll (with the toilet paper still on it) -- And if I run out sometime in the next month, you better believe a pumpkin will go missing! 
• Newspaper
• Raffia (tan & green) -- I only found green and only used green. 
• Glue gun 
• Wood top for the pumpkin (sticks and cinnamon sticks would work too) -- I went with cinnamon sticks which was a bit of a disappointment. They didn't even smell! 


I do have some play-by-play changes.

I first of all could NOT get the newspaper to work out. So I just didn't use it. Perhaps mine look a little more like fabric wrapped around a toilet paper roll; I don't know.

But if you never knew that they were made of a toilet paper roll, you might not notice!

Erica also didn't have to use her glue gun. I ended up glueing two cinnamon sticks together to make a thicker stem and had to use it also to secure the sticks in place, as well as the raffia which wanted to slide up.

Here's my first (pre-raffia and minus all of his cute buddies):


And then I had to decide where to put them (all SEVEN of them!) Did I need to make 7? No, but I had that much fabric due to Hobby Lobby not cutting fat quarters. I should have looked up some other projects but instead made lots of pumpkins. They almost need different "levels" to put them all together and I didn't have any place to do that.

So we put some here:


And a few here (in the front room):


These are so easy to make, and honestly, just any sort of creative expression is just what I need these days.  The hardest part was gathering the materials and those Hobby Lobby/Michael's trips are brought to you by my amazing husband!
What do you think?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

how cute are those!!! you did such a great job!!

i seriously have a million crafts i've been wanting to do! how do we find the time??

Am I Really Grown Up? said...

I love these! Totally doing it now!

Natalie said...

Look at you Miss Crafty! Those pumpkins look awesome!

Meg O. said...

How adorable! Well, aren't you full of the food and craft ideas!

Nicole said...

I love these. And like how easy they are.

mom said...

I love them - you are so talented!!

Katie said...

I am adding this to my list of projects! I was skeptical at first, but they're adorable! Great find!

Cajun Cowgirl said...

Hahaha! I love your skeptical at first! They were really so easy. And you can try the newspaper inside to make them "puffier" if you want, but mine just didn't work. I have to let myself be flexible with these things. It's supposed to be relaxing after all!

Cat Woman said...

Love them. I will make them for my office. Not 7, well maybe 7, I can always share with others.

Cajun Cowgirl said...

Did you make them for your office? How did they turn out?