Stack O Punkins!

 Here's a little project I started in on the other night after seeing such beautiful projects out there in the World of Blog.  I was more than a little jealous of all that autumn beauty going on when I hadn't done one thing to celebrate Autumn's arrival.  

Besides, I was kinda broke, so buying a buncha supplies for a fabulous display was not going to happen.  Fortunately, I know how to do a lot with a little.  Here then is what I started with:

Two t-shirts, one orange, one gold, each $1.50 at thrift;

Three 'found' artificial pumpkins in reasonable condition from my local Good Samaritan thrift shop;

Jute string;

A rough bowl I found at Dollar Tree;

Assorted buttons and beads; and

A few silk leaves in fall tones.

I started by cutting off all the sleeves, necklines and hems from the t-shirts.  Then I laid our the remaining fabric and eyeballed approximate two inch strips as if i was cutting from one side seam of the t-shirt to the other.  It really doesn't matter if it's perfect.  I did this once before, using my quilt guide and rotary cutter, but it really doesn't make much difference.  In this case, good enough really is good enough.  I cut many more strips than I needed for this project, but I put them away - I can use them later for something else.

Now, I was taking my own pics and it isn't easy to demonstrate some of what I was doing, so you can see that I got creative with a nice heavy set of pliers in this shot.  What I did at this point was to simply stretch each strip good and hard.  That makes them curl up, as you can see.  It creates a kind of finished edge for the flowers you'll make with them.

Once I had my strips ready, I turned my attention to my three pumpkins.  These were a find, I think, and I only paid $3.75 for all three.  

 I broke off the stems of the largest two of these pumpkins.  I needed the smallest to keep its stem.

 I stacked the three of them up and hot glued them together.

 I primed the stack with Krylon primer and then spray painted it with Krylon's Dover White.  I used ORB to spray the rough little bowl I intended to use as the base for this project.  When the base was dry, I turned the bowl upside down and hot glued the stack to it.  It was good and heavy and would anchor the pumpkins well.

I made rolled fabric roses from my fabric strips.  Here's a good tutorial if you want to learn to make these pretty little roses.

At this point, I sort of got caught up in the creative process and stopped taking photos.  Sorry about that.  I just sort of went a little crazy, putting pretty flowers, beads, buttons, and jute string all over my pumpkin stack.  Here's the final result:

 

 And another:

 Last of all:

As difficult as it is to remember to record my steps, I just love getting immersed in a project.  That part is just so much fun!

When's the last time you lost yourself in the creative process?

Love, 

Sass

P.S.  I have not been compensated in any way by anyone for anything I said in this blog post.  I include links and other information, just in case you have questions about colors or sources.

Linking up to:

I Heart Naptime at http://www.iheartnaptime.net/link-to-party-sundae-scoop-3/
Polly Want a Crafter at http://www.pollywantacrafter.com/2011/09/craft-link-party-49.html
Tip Junkie at http://www.tipjunkie.com/homemade-projects-919/
J and M's eye candy at http://jandmseyecandy.blogspot.com/
The Girl Creative at http://www.thegirlcreative.com/2011/09/just-something-i-whipped-up_26.html
DIY Showoff at http://thediyshowoff.blogspot.com/2011/10/halloween-vignette-and-diy-fall.html