I coordinated, I conquered

Who doesn't love a good decorated pumpkin?!  I mentioned in this post that I coordinated a pumpkin contest for the teachers at my school.  Each teacher was given the opportunity to paint a pumpkin by themselves or with a partner or group of people, everyone brought their pumpkins in for display, and the students were given tickets to vote for their favorite pumpkins!

 

I teamed up with the music teacher (she bought the pumpkin and I painted it, see we were a team!), and I chose to paint our pumpkin like a bubblegum machine! 

 

 

Here's how I did it:

 

Start off with a nice round pumpkin, and cut the stem off.  It just so happened that our stem broke off before we even knew that we wanted it like that.

 

Using craft paint (you will use this on the whole pumpkin), paint the entire pumpkin gray.  This seems silly, but it masks all the crevices in between the gumballs that would otherwise be pumpkin-colored.

 

I like the more expensive or "medium" expensive craft paint, rather than $0.99 brand.  It's less watery and allows for better coverage (trust me I used both kinds).  And when I say expensive, I mean $1.99 or $2.99 instead of $0.99. 

 

After the pumpkin is painted gray and completely dry, paint gumball-sized black circles all over it, covering the whole pumpkin.  At this point, I put my pumpkin on top of a box and turned the box, instead of rolling the pumpkin around on the floor (the paint was starting to peel off). 

 

After the black circles are dry, fill them in with color (pictured below).  I used blue, red, purple, green, yellow, white, orange, and pink.  I found that the more expensive paint covered the pumpkin better.  I used the cheap-o kind on some of the gumballs, and I ended up having to go over them 2, even 3 times before the color was solid and opaque.

 

After all the gumballs are filled in, I added little lines to show reflection on some (not all) of the gumballs (shown below) .  I used black for the white gumballs and white for the rest of the colors.

 

 

The base is a medium size terra cotta flower pot that I spray painted red and added details to (like a knob and dispenser).  The top is the base of the terra-cotta flower pot (the part that catches the water).  And I added a little bottle cap that I spray painted red to the top to cover up the little hole. 

 

Before hot gluing it all together, I covered the entire pumpkin with a clear, glitter paint (make sure the gumballs are completely dry before doing this step).  The glitter was white and shimmery, but the paint was clear, so when it dried, it left a nice sparkly effect that didn't cover anything up.

 

 

Here's the final product with no clutter-y, craft room in the background:

 

 

From Harry Potter to Duck Dynasty, Jack Sparrow to Cat in the Hat, all the pumpkins turned out great!

 

Our clever principal turned his tissue box into a pumpkin.

 

Our students are OBSESSED with Duck Dynasty.  So of course this was the 1st place winner by a landslide!

 

 

We got 2nd place!  Whoop whoop!

 

Besides my own pumpkin (duh), this was my favorite!

 

 Nothing like a little morale-boosting contest to power us through to Thanksgiving Break.  This was such a good idea (not to toot my own horn or anything), and I can't wait to do it again next year!