Halloween Decorations Flowerpot Pumpkins
Pumpkins are the quintessential Halloween decoration. In October, there are hundreds of thousands of pumpkins purchased throughout the United States that will be carved into jack-o-lanterns to invite guests into the yard to collect treats that night. Many people would like to have an alternative to the carved pumpkins that have a very limited shelf life. How about replacing those pumpkins with flower-pot pumpkins that will be able to last for years to come?
The materials that are needed to create these lasting pumpkins are: flower pots, sticks or pieces of a branch that will fit through the drainage hole on the bottom of the flower pot, acrylic paint in black, orange and glow in the dark yellow (optional), paint brushes, hot glue gun, green silk leaves and spray sealant.
Begin this Halloween project by painting the entire outside of the flower pot orange and allow the paint to dry. You might find that you need to paint on an additional coat of orange paint after the first coat has dried so that you will have an even coverage of the orange paint. Allow the second coat of paint to dry.
When the orange paint has dried, a face can be painted onto the pumpkin with either black paint or glow in the dark paint. These painted faces can be as simple as using triangles for the eyes and nose and drawing a toothy grin as elaborate as you desire for your jack-o-lantern's face to look. Allow the black paint to dry. If desired, the features of the jack-o-lantern's face can be outlined in glow-in-the-dark paint after they've dried so that they will give off a spooky glow on Halloween night.
To finish the base of the pumpkin so that it will last for several years to come, completely cover the painted pumpkin flowerpot with a thick coat of spray sealant and allow to dry. This will allow the pumpkin to survive rain showers.
Finally, break a stick or small branch that will fit through the drainage hole into a piece that will be small enough to represent the stem of a pumpkin and press through the drainage hole of the flowerpot. Use hot glue to hold this in place. Also, glue a few green leaves onto the stem to give the pumpkin a fresh from the pumpkin patch look.
The beauty of these fun lasting pumpkins is that they can be made in almost any size. A large pumpkin is a perfect replacement for the carved jack-o-lantern in front of the house for Halloween. However, very small flower pots can be used in a classroom for a fun Halloween art project that can be taken home and displayed on the table or in the windows of the home for Halloween.
