When it comes to celebrating the fall season, the first thing I think about is pumpkins and falling leaves. Cool crisp air and evening fires are the best days to start creating and crafting again. Besides being a popular food of this season, pumpkins can be hours of family fun. And not just carving them for Halloween. I’m sure you’ve heard many traditional stories associated with this gourd. Some depict it as scary, while others are just amazing tales that the children love to hear as bedtime stories.
However you like to enjoy your pumpkins, Fall is the time to pull out all your orange paint, carving tools and enjoy the season of the pumpkin Let’s check out a few pumpkin crafts you can do this season.
4 Easy-to-make pumpkin-themed fall craft DIY project ideas to make at home
Simple Paper Plate Pumpkin Face
Paper plates are a common household item available in many homes. Besides being used for eating food, they also serve as a canvas for many easy DIY craft ideas at home. Making a pumpkin face out of it involves different skills and safe-to-do steps that your kids will love and learn a lot from.
Things you need
- A medium or large size paper plate
- Orange watercolor or paint
- A brush
- A glue stick or liquid glue
- A black color paper sheet or a black marker
- A pair of scissors
What to do
This is a perfect project for both a child and an adult. Some kids may need some help and guidance with the steps but imagination is really all that’s needed. Of course, please be cautious if your child is using scissors.
- Place the paper plate upside down and paint it entirely with orange watercolor or paint. Leave it to dry while you prepare for other things.
- Next, you need to make the eyes, nose, and teeth of the pumpkin.
- Remember that all three things (eyes, nose, and teeth) will be in triangle shape.
- If you plan to use a black marker, once the orange watercolor or paint is fully dried, draw and fill two medium shape triangles at some distance apart on the plate.
- Next in the center of the plate both horizontally and vertically, draw and fill a big-sized inverted triangle as the nose of the pumpkin.
- Lastly, draw the teeth of the pumpkin. Here, you will need to draw and fill at least seven small-sized triangles. Follow an upward, then downward, and then upward-facing triangular sequence for drawing the teeth.
- If you plan to use a black color sheet, simply cut the triangles in sizes mentioned above (in the case of drawing with a marker) and then paste it with glue.
- Your paper plate pumpkin is ready for being used as a wall or door hanging.
Pumpkin Door Wreath
If you are bored of making traditional wreaths for your house entrance, then why not use a real pumpkin and get a little more creative.
Things you need
- Small gourds (from grocery store or dollar store)
- Small floral picks from dollar store
- wire wreath frame from dollar store
- Floral wire, you’ll want something strong enough but pliable enough to twist.
- Pliers
- Wire cutters
- Glue Gun and Glue
- Ribbon
What to do
- Lay down the wire wreath frame and arrange the picks and gourds where you may want them.
- Once you have a design, cut the picks if necessary (you may need to use the wire cutters) and start wrapping the floral wire around the floral picks and around the wire wreath so they fill in the wreath.
- You can use the floral wire and wrap around the stem of the gourd or around the gourd completely to add onto the wire wreath. OR you can use a glue gun to adhere the gourds onto the wreath and picks where you want them. Fresh gourds may be heavy and may require some floral wire and glue to stay in place.
- Add your ribbon to any areas you can still see the wire wreath and also to add a bow. Add some to the back to hang.
Spray painted pumpkin decoration pieces
A few small pumpkins placed in a wooden tray or basket can also serve as a decoration for your living room, kitchen, or even as a centerpiece on your dining table.
Things you need
- A few small pumpkins
- Spray paints preferably in golden, silver, and bronze or copper color
- A nice small basket or wooden tray
What to do
- Spray-paint the pumpkins completely with different colors. Do not multi-color any pumpkin. Spray-paint an entire pumpkin in a single color only.
- Once dried, place them in a basket or a wooden tray and use as a decoration piece. If needed, place some dried leaves or acorns as well between them.
Card stock paper strip pumpkin
Things you need
- A few card stock paper sheets preferably in autumn colors for pumpkin i.e. orange, yellow, brown, etc., and a green one for making leaves.
- A pair of scissors
- A hole punch machine
- A piece of fish wire or normal wire to tie the strips of paper.
What to do
- Cut the different color card paper sheets into 6-8 strips of equal length and width.
- Cut a few leaves from the green color card paper sheet.
- Next, make a stack of 6-8 strips of a single color and make a hole at both ends of the strips.
- Make sure to place the leaf at one end while making the hole.
- Next, pass the wire in each hole of this stack 2-3 times and tie a knot.
- Now bend the stack and gently separate each strip.
- Once all the strips have been separated, a sphere would have formed, making your pumpkin.
Final thoughts
There are a ton of other creative DIY fall craft ideas that are based on pumpkin themes. In this article, we have covered the ones for different age groups. We are sure this will help your kids learn a lot and inspire them to come up with different craft ideas of their own as well.