Oh. My. Glitter.
It is no surprise that the gals of Awesome with Sprinkles love ourselves some glitter. After all, glitter is the “sprinkles” of the craft world! With all the scary and silly Halloween decor out there, we decided it was time to pretty things up a bit! These gorgeous, glitter covered pumpkins are just the perfect combination of ghoul and glam that your Halloween decor has been dying for. Glitter makes everything better, am I right!?
Crafty Supplies Needed:
- Faux Pumpkins
- Pencil or marker
- Hot glue gun + glue sticks
- Glitter (various colors)
- Craft paint and/or spray paint (various colors)
- Paint brushes
Let’s get crafty!
1. Draw/Trace a design onto the Pumpkins
I choose three pumpkins of varied heights and sizes for my pumpkin patch. You could mix and match or have them all be the same depending on what design you are planning on. It doesn’t matter what color your pumpkins are to start, because we are going to be painting over them! So just pick the shapes and size you like!
Start by drawing or tracing your design onto your pumpkins with a pencil (or a marker if your pumpkin is a darker color). I found it was easier to free-hand my designs along the natural curve of the pumpkins.
If free-handing is not your thing, a quick Pinterest search will turn up all kinds of great Halloween printable designs you can use! You can even use pumpkin carving templates as stencils for tracing! We also love the idea of using a simple pattern (Chevron! Polka dots!) or writing a festive message on your pumpkins. You can make them as pretty or as spooky as you’d like, get creative! The designs I made were a spiderweb, bats on a moon, and some spooky ghosts! Simple sure, but they are far from boring! Watch them transform!
2. Outline with hot glue
Carefully trace over your designs with hot glue. Yup. That’s right. Hot glue. Didn’t see that coming, did ya? The hot glue gives some texture and depth to your designs and ensures they are visible once you paint over them. Try to make clean thick beads of glue with minimal “strings.” Once the hot glue is dry, run your hands or a dry cloth over your pumpkins to try to remove as many stray stringy pieces as possible.
3. Paint the pumpkins
Who says Halloween has to stay in a black and orange palette? You have a rainbow of colors to work with so mix it up, add a splash of untraditional color, or make your pumpkins match your home decor. Hot pink pumpkins anyone? Yaaaaaaas!
I chose three base colors for my pumpkins: purple, white, and black. The purple paint was regular acrylic craft paint that I brushed on with a large paint brush. I found a bristle brush worked best to get full coverage and then I went over it again with a sponge brush to get into the cracks of the glue design.
For my other two pumpkins I used spray chalk paint. Black Rust-oleum chalk board paint for the bats and Krylon Chalky Finish in Classic White for this little shorty.
I found that 2 coats covered everything evenly. Once the base layer of paint was dry, I added a few details like painting in the moon with purple paint to help it stand out more.
After the base layer was dry, I dry brushed over the top of the pumpkins to give them a “dirty” chalkboard sort of look. To do this I took a large, DRY paint brush with just a teeny bit of paint on the ends of the bristles. I ran the brush across a paper towel a few times to remove most of the wet paint. Then I quickly and gently brushed back and forth across the whole pumpkin, barely touching the surface. Just enough to “dust” it, if you will. This really made the designs on the pumpkin stand against the darker creases. Such a cool (and easy) effect that really takes it to the next level!
For my purple pumpkin, I dry brushed a mix of white and light purple colored paint. I dry brushed white over the black pumpkin (just like a chalkboard!) and black dry brushed over the white pumpkin; which REALLY made those ghosts come alive!
I had a few too many stringies that I didn’t clean up very well on that pumpkin, but it kind of worked with the “dirty” look. I’ll let it slide. Like Detty always says, “there are no ‘oops’ in crafting”. I also painted the stems of the pumpkins gold for a little extra glitz! Love it!
4. Add some sparkly details…aka GLITTER TIME!
Now it’s time to get your glitter on! To adhere the TONS of glitter to my pumpkins, I used tacky glue which I painted on with a sponge brush, making sure to get into the creases. For the large areas that would be glitterfied (totally a word!) I put the glue and glitter on in small sections at a time. This ensured I could cover a large area without the glue drying out before I was done.
After painting on the glue, I covered it with this totally fabulous chunky glitter! Oh. So. Glittery! <3
Pro Tip: Have a few extra paper plates handy for shaking off the extra glitter and pouring it back into the container for reuse. Cuts down on glitter waste and cleanup time. Win-win!
I added translucent glitter paint on top of the bats to add a little sparkle and more of that fab chunky glitter in black to make the spiders on the web really stand out.
For the last pumpkin, I added some translucent glitter dust to the top for a ghostly shimmer!
With a little paint and glitter we turned some otherwise simple fake pumpkins into some faux fantastic decorations! We love this no-carve pumpkin craft because it will add a little sparkle to your Halloween decor that you can enjoy it for more than just one night. Plus, no sticky mess! That’s better than a rotten old pumpkin any day!
And that’s all there s to it folks! Stand back and enjoy these glittertastic beauties that add just the right amount of sparkle to a spooky holiday.
If you are looking for even more no-carve pumpkin decor ideas check out our Faux Fabulous No-Carve Pumpkin Decor which, believe it or not, is even EASIER than this one!