How to Make Paper Pumpkins

I just love this time of year ~ And the first thing that I think of when fall comes around are Halloween pumpkins.  I have so many Halloween crafts to share with you but today I started making paper pumpkins and I want to share them with you.

These are the supplies that I used to make these great paper pumpkins:

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  • 12 strips of paper that is 1 inch x 6 inches (I think this project would be perfect if you have alot of scrap paper that you can cut  1 inch x 6 inches strips)
  • 2 brads
  • paper leaves
  • brown paper cut into really thin strips
  • adhesive
  • dye ink pad

I am so excited, so let me show you How To  Make Paper Pumpkins!

What I did first was cut the paper strips using my Purple Cows paper trimmer.  As you can see I used a solid and pattern paper.

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Then with my Crop-A-Dile II from We R Memory Keepers, I punched holes on both ends of the paper strips.  The reason I used the Crop-A-Dile is that it was able to cut all of the cardstock with one punch so that they were all even.

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Now put one brad through all the paper strips and fasten – just do this on one side

Next you need to fan out the paper this makes the next step easier

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Put the brad into one piece of paper and now go around and add each strip to the brad ~ You may have to push down and wiggle the paper to fit onto the brad but don’t worry they all will go on.

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For the leaves I used my Cricut Expression machine.  Looking through all of the cartridges I ended up using the leaf from the Cricut Lite Cupcake Wrapper cartridge.  I cut the same leaf out in all different sizes.

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Then using Memento Dye Ink I brushed (well not really brushed I just turned the ink pad upside down and rubbed it onto the paper) color onto the cut leaf to give it a “real look” of all different shades of green.  Remember this time of year leaves can be yellow, red, orange… so pick the colors that you want.

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Now the brown for the stem.  I used Memento Rich Cocoa dye ink.  You can use as much or as little ink as you like. If you don’t have brown ink you can use dark green or even a burgundy red.

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The next step is to put the leaves together with some type of adhesive. I used Elmer’s Dot Runner and also small clear adhesive Dots from Zots (Therm O Web).  I also cut a very thin piece of brown paper wrapped it around a stylus and ran it under water to get the paper wet.  When it dried it gave me curly paper that I also added to the top of the pumpkin with the leaves.  You can also use raffia if you like.  I wanted to keep this project all paper.

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Next step is to put the leaves onto your paper pumpkin and what did was bend the leaves in the center to give them more of a real leaf look.  You can do crumple them up to before you glue them together.  Always remember that this is your handmade project so add your personal touch.  With that being said after I made my first paper pumpkin it just looked like something was missing and I finally figured it out.  The stem of the pumpkin.  I have bought pumpkins that didn’t have a stem or one that looked really bad, but I wanted to see what it would look like with a stem.  I just took a small piece of the brown cardstock and rolled it up, and left a flat end on the bottom so that I would be able to use the glue dot to put onto the pumpkin.  It worked and looks good.

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Now your Handmade Paper Pumpkins are ready for your Holiday centerpiece or anyplace to decorate for the Fall Season.  There are so many different Halloween Crafts and I just thought this one could be used for the entire Autumn Season.  Thanks for letting me share this fun project with you.

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~ Happy Fall Everyone ~

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

A Fun Summer Handmade Greeting Card For A Pool Side Birthday Party

I have been having so much fun with these House Mouse Rubber Stamps lately.  Have you ever just gone shopping in your own craft room, finding things that you didn’t know or forgot that you had?   Well I think these House Mouse Rubber Stamps have a theme for just about anything.

My girlfriend was having a pool side birthday party so I had to keep with that theme for her handmade birthday card.

I used the House Mouse Bunny Cruise stamp.  I first stamped the image in white cardstock with Tuxedo Black Memento Dye Ink.  Then I colored the image with Copic Sketch markers.

Thinking that this card needed a little lift, I decided to cut out the image and used pop dots to make the 3-D look.  It still wasn’t what I wanted so I stamped the image again on the white card stock and just colored in the little duck and the cocktail and cut them out and made another layer using pop dots for those to images to stand out even more.  I used my clear embossing marker and some clear embossing powder on the cocktail to make it look like a shiny glass.  After layering with some different color blue cardstock, and cut the bottom with a wavy cut from my Purple Cows paper cutter, and finished the handmade birthday card off with some polka dot ribbon.

I hope you enjoy this card as much as I enjoyed making it.

housemousebunnycruisebirthdaycard

Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!