Pour Paint Wooden Pumpkins

I ordered these beautiful wooden pumpkin cutouts from Etsy. They arrived quickly & ready for painting. These are 24 inch cutouts. I also ordered 16 inch ones from Amazon. I plan to do cutouts of my own, but I am currently trying to master the use of the jig saw.

Here's how it's done:

1. When working with wood for door hangers or decoration, I like to work with luan. It's fairly inexpensive, smooth, and easy to cut & paint. 

2. If needed I use a fine sand paper to smooth edges and imperfections. Make sure you wipe the wood clean afterwards. 

3. Pick your colors. I used turquoise, dark brown, brown, white & orange.

4. Paint pumpkin with the lighter brown. 

5. Mix paint with equal parts water & one part Elmer's glue. I used the clear caps from liquid laundry detergent jugs to mix my paint, water, & glue. I used a small craft stick.

6. Next I poured the outline of a pumpkin on the wood cutout using each individual color.

7. Now, the fun part. Use an index card or some stiff cardstock material. I have also found old plastic gift cards work great. With your index card or plastic gift card lightly drag the paint from top to bottom. 

8. This part really can get messy. Place your hands under the cutout and lift and tilt so your paint flows to fill in any gaps of paint or to establish the look you want.

I have 3 options pictured as I kept messing with them dragging paint to get the different looks I wanted. 

9. Set your painted cutout on an elevated surface, such as small cups or cardboard boxes. It will most likely be wet on the bottom,  & you don't want it to stick as it dries to your tablecloth or paper protecting your work surface. It takes 24-48 hours to dry.

10. Spray with polyurethane to seal.

11. Use hand drill to make holes at top to thread heavy gauge wire or ribbon for hanging if you plan to hang on door or wall. Skip this step if you want to sit pumpkin as decoration or if you are working with smaller cutouts.

12 Add your bow & display.