Metallic & Glittered Dollar Store Pumpkins {DIY Tutorial}

Anyone who’s read my blog during the fall/holiday season knows I am absolutely obsessed with metallic and glitter finishes in home décor accessories. I love the shiny finishes, and how most of the accents catch the light and bounce it around the room. Metallic and glitter pack a punch if you want to create a wow factor.

And obviously I am not the only one who feels this way because all the popular stores carry these sorts of finishes: Pottery Barn, Home Goods, ZGallerie and even Target all cash in on those of us who love the shiny things in life.

What’s fortunate for us DIY/crafty people is that with some simple dollar store décor and some great craft supplies, we too can create shiny, glittery things. Ooh. Aah.

I had emailed the folks at Plaid crafts to see if they wouldn’t mind sending me some glittery stuff to play with from the uber fab Martha Stewart line. Luckily, they said yes, so I am here today to show you 2 SSC (super simple crafts) using some of the cool stuff they sent me plus some stuff I bought. From start to finish they take less than an hour to do both, and they’re both kiddo friendly if you want to get them in on the fun. And unlike using glitter in powder/normal glitter form, using glitter paint is SO MUCH EASIER to clean up.

Supplies:

-2 pumpkins (ceramic, foam, plastic…it’ll all work) The ones I used are from Dollar Tree, $1 each

-Martha Stewart Metallic Paint in Rust

-Martha Stewart Glitter Paint in Brownstone

-Dark Brown Craft Paint (Normal Acrylic Craft Paint)

-Paint Brush/Sponge Brush (I used these and LOVE them)

-White Spray Paint in a Flat Finish (I use the 97-cent spray paint from Walmart)

So, you start off with your pumpkins. I usually take the price tag/UPC stickers off, and then I prime them with some super cheap flat spray paint. Usually, I just use white spray paint, but they also have gray and black, so if you’re doing something dark, you might want to use gray or black. Personally, I feel white is a great color to start with. Much like a blank canvas.

Once you’ve primed, let it dry about 15 minutes, and you’re ready to go. Remember that when priming you don’t need for it to be solid white to be “primed”.

For the glitter pumpkin, take your glitter paint and do a light coat. It’ll look a smidge splotchy, but remember that light/thin coats work and dry so much better than thick coats. Not that I am speaking from experience…

Here’s coat 1. Very pretty and sheer. A little ethereal. I almost stopped here because I liked it so darn much.

And onto coat 2:

And finally coat 3:

While each coat was drying (about 5 minutes/dry to the touch), I flip flopped between glitter pumpkin and metallic pumpkin. This way I could knock out 2 pumpkins at one time.

Here’s coat 1 of the metallic rust colored paint:

Rust is such a gorgeous, metallic orange. It’s not your basic Halloween orange, it’s deep and almost copper like. I am in love.

Here it is after two coats…

Once the third/final coat was done on each, I painted the stem of the pumpkin using a dark brown color (burnt umber). On the metallic pumpkin, I painted the leaf the same color, but on the glitter pumpkin I wanted a pop of color, so I painted the leaf the rust color.

I love the brownstone glitter because it has brown, silver, gold, orange flecks of glitter in it. I’ve never seen anything like it. It would make a marvelous nail polish. Martha, please make one.

The metallic is so rich and opaque. I didn’t think it’d work as well as it did.

I love them! I can’t wait to put these new pumpkins alongside my collection of other pumpkins. My collection has grown quite a bit the past 2 years, so adding in smaller, inexpensive pieces like these allow me to create a new feel with little money. This craft is something anyone can do. Wouldn’t they make great placecards, too?

If you need other pumpkin ideas, check out my other pumpkin related tutorials:

{Mercury Glass Pumpkins}

{Faux Mercury Glass (for non-glass pumpkins)}

And coming up on Thursday… DAMASK PUMPKINS! <insert confetti here>

Have you done any pumpkin crafting lately? I shy away from carving pumpkins, but I may give it a go this year. :)

Disclaimer: Plaid sent me some free craft supplies to use + I used/bought some other supplies of my own, but I was not otherwise compensated for this post.