Distressed Scrap Wood Pumpkins

I just love making fall decorations for my house! It’s a great way to experiment with new craft techniques and save money on things that are only on display for a short period of time each year. Today I’m going to show you how to make these awesome Distressed Scrap Wood Pumpkins! I used leftover wood cut from 4×4 posts I used to build a bench.

However, if you don’t have scrap wood just laying around, you can have your local construction store (Home Depot, Lowes, etc) cut a few pieces off of a 4×4 post for you. Just make sure you DON’T get pressure treated wood. That’s for outside only. Or, if you know someone who works with wood or is in construction, they usually have free scraps you could snap up too. My pieces are cut at 3 1/2 inches and 4 3/4 inches tall, but you can make your pumpkins as tall or squat as you want! Here’s everything you’ll need.

You might also like my Fall Leaf Collection Album project!

Distressed Scrap Wood Pumpkins

Supplies:

• Scrap 4×4 wood blocks
• Orange and brown craft paint
• Brown and green construction paper
• Scissors
• Medium and thin paint brushes
• Hot glue gun
• Sand paper – 150 grit is great for this project, but you can use whatever you have (or an old nail file)
• Optional – hair dryer to speed the paint drying process

I just started out with the raw wood, but if you’re concerned about splinters go ahead and sand each of the blocks lightly, then wipe down with damp cloth to remove the dust. Now you can go ahead and paint the blocks.

You’ll want to apply two coats, and let each one dry throughly. While the second coat is drying, let’s work on the vines. Take your construction paper and cut thin, long strips off of it. Using the closed edge of your scissors and starting the the middle of each strip, pinch the paper against the scissors with your thumb and pull it to the edge with your other hand. Do this a few times to curl the paper. It’s the exact same way you would curl curling ribbon for a party. I bet you didn’t know you can do that with paper!

Start at the middle of that same strip again and curl the other end. Go ahead and curl the other strips. You’ll need 3 for each pumpkin. Now let’s make the stem! Cut your brown construction paper in half width wise. You’ll only need half of the paper to make two stems. Now take the paper and fold it in half lengthwise.

And crumble it up. Yep. You heard me. Crumple, wrinkle, bend, and squish that piece of construction paper until it’s nice and soft. Then open it back up, keeping it folded in half. Starting at one end, roll it up tight.

Use your hot glue gun to glue down the free edge. When the glue is set, cut the roll in half. Now you have two pumpkin stems!! You should have a set of one pumpkin stem and three vines for each pumpkin you are making. By now your last coat of paint should be completely dry. Take some of your orange paint and your brown paint and mix them together.

This makes a pretty dark pumpkin shade. Use this to create stripes on your pumpkins.

You can use a hair dryer to quickly dry the stripes so you can move onto the next step, or let them air dry. Next you’re going to rip off a small piece of sand paper. I always recommend ripping off small pieces when distressing with sand paper. Paint tends to gum up sand paper very quickly, and smaller pieces are easier to work with when trying to distress small areas. Start by sanding off the top and bottom edges of the block until the raw wood shows through.

Then you can sand the corners. Depending on how much you want to distress your pumpkins, you can also sand along the edges of the stripes or random spots. Wipe off the sanding dust. Now go ahead and put a thin dime sized layer of hot glue on the top of your pumpkin.

Press the centers of your three vines into the glue, crisscrossing them. Then put a large amount of hot glue on one end of your stem and press it into place on top of the vine centers. Hold it in place for a few seconds until the glue firms up.

And you’re all done! See how easy and cute these Distressed Scrap Wood Pumpkins are? Next time you’re looking at fall decor, check the prices of pumpkins like these. You’ll be amazed at how much cheaper you can make them yourself!