In the over 28 years she has parented me, my mother has “generously” passed down a few of her traits for me to adopt as my own.  These include things like a biting wit, an eagerness to people please, and perfectionist tendencies or ‘an all or nothing’ like attitude.

What she chose to keep all to herself were things like her ability in the kitchen, her bright green thumb, and most importantly…her incredible creativity.

I’ve long come to accept the fact that I DID NOT inherit my mothers aptitude for making and creating things.  I realize fully that I am not a ‘do it yourself’ creative type and when it comes to crafts it needs to basically be dummy proof before I’ll even think about attempting it.  Lucky for me I found such a craft on Pinterest and decided to be brave and set out on an adventure to the foreign lands of Michael’s craft store.

The craft that I chose I found on the Martha Steward Pinterest board.  Usually I avoid all things Martha because her projects always seems to involve investing a small fortune in obscure craft tools and ‘craft necessities’ to make them look like her staff she does.  It’s a bunch of bullshit if you ask me.  It might be brilliantly marketed bullshit that has made her filthy rich, but bullshit nonetheless.

Anyway, this little project appeared different.  This one appeared dummy proof AND pretty reasonable.  So I ventured out to the suburbs and the local Michaels craft superstore extravaganza to gather my supplies.

They include:

-Spray Paint (your choice of color, but the metallic is much prettier than matte finish)

-Matching Glitter (if you choose, which let’s face it, one always should choose glitter)

-A Paintbrush

-Glue (a crafting necessity apparently)

-Pumpkins

Yep.  That’s right.  This is a Halloween craft.  The tackiest of all crafty holidays besides every other tacky crafty holiday.

Except this craft is not only dummy proof but sort of elegant and pretty too.

Now…this involves spray paint so you’re going to want to secure a spacious area with good ventilation.  I recommend the great outdoors.

Arm yourself with rubber gloves because spray paint DOES NOT simply wash off your hands. I know this because of trial and error.  And because I had to get my rings professionally cleaned after one pumpkin attempt.

I told you I wasn’t a crafter.

Now here comes the only part tricky part.  You spray paint the pumpkins.

All the way around, every visible surface, even the stem, then let them dry.

I know…it’s a lot to ask…but don’t give up now though because we’re almost done!

After you’ve finished the grueling task of spray painting tiny pumpkins, you’re going to take your paintbrush and with the touch that only Martha could teach you, apply a layer of glue to several of the pumpkins.  Now you will lightly dust the glue coated pumpkins with an ethereal amount of delicate glitter.

You just glitter the pumpkins…ok?  This isn’t rocket science.  Although from the outside looking in my process was probably NOT the one of least resistance.  I did use a makeup brush after all.

TADA!

They’re gorgeous.  Especially when they get hit by a little candlelight.

I chose to only glitter 2 of the 8 pumpkins I painted.  A little glitter goes a long way.  My mom didn’t gift me her creative crafting skill, but at least she taught me that much.

The remainder I kept only painted with two coats of spray paint.  They really are super easy to make and quite pretty.  I’ve got them staggered throughout the house and they make it ‘holiday festive’ without having orange everywhere.

This concludes my craft lesson for the year.  I hope you all learned something new here, even if it’s that I’m pretty creatively challenged.

In spirit of the season, here are some additional holiday decor views from around our house.  Happy Halloween!!