Carving a pumpkin is a traditional Halloween decoration. However, once hollowed-out and cut into, every pumpkin begins to rot and mold, shortening the life-span of these wonderful fall decorations. Keep the pumpkins and gourds you don’t cut until its time to dust off the Christmas lights and put up a tree with these simple, yet delightful methods of decorating for fall.
Outdoor pumpkin décor
– Trick or treat pumpkins. Use masking tape to cover areas on the pumpkin that you want to remain the color of the pumpkin (usually orange or white). You can easily form stripes, patterns and letters. Then, use black spray paint and spray the areas that are not covered by the tape. Let the paint dry and peel off the masking tape, leaving a message and pattern behind. Three pumpkins with the words “Trick,” “Or, “ and “Treat” with a stripe or two above and below the letters make a perfect greeting to would-be candy collectors.
– Birdbath crow. Paint a black crow on a medium-sized pumpkin, build a nest of twigs or a fall wreath in an empty bird-bath and place the pumpkin inside the nest. This crow ads to the Halloween décor outside your home.
– Scrape, don’t carve. Rather than carve your pumpkins, draw freehand letters on them and scrape off the skin to highlight each letter with the lighter orange color under the skin. An option is to scrape off one letter on each pumpkin and stack them vertically on top of a dowel so the word reads top to bottom. One caution if stacking, keep the word short, or your pumpkin stack will get too heavy to stand up.
– Stacked pumpkins. Drive an iron rod into the ground, drill holes large enough for the rod to go through and stack pumpkins at different angles for a gravity-defying tower. Three pumpkins with stems turned at different angles make an excellent display in the garden.
Indoor pumpkin ideas
– Miniature pumpkins that are often found at the grocery store, serve as excellent candleholders when hollowed out in the shape of a candle or tea light.
– Use colorful miniature pumpkins or guards as a table runner by lining them up in the middle of a table, in a straight line or offset, weaving a ribbon in between them and topping each pumpkin with a bittersweet stem.
– Candy corn pumpkins can be used indoors or out, by painting taller and more slender-shaped pumpkins with a yellow base, orange middle and white top in the pattern of a candy corn. Make sure the stem is covered when you spray the top third to avoid a white stem.
Ideas adapted from interiordec.about.com and www.midwestliving.com
