No Sew Sweater Pumpkin - K & F Design

Supplies:

Foam pumpkin. I purchased the bright orange foam pumpkin form dollar tree.
- https://www.dollartree.com/carvable-foam-pumpkins-45-in/222610

White acrylic paint and paint brush

An old sweater you no longer want. I did not have a white seater, so I picked one up from a second hand store. You should be able to get at least three pumpkins out of one sweater, but it depends on the size of your sweater.

Steam of your choice. I used scrap pieces of burlap I had. Wrapping the foam stem with twine would also look nice.

Extra decorations of your choice. I used raffia and a Skin Dalia Sola Wood Flower from www.luvsolaflowers.com Feel free to decorate your pumpkin with leaves, other types of flowers, or berries of your choosing.

Hot glue and hot glue gun

Razor blade

I started off by painting my pumpkin white so that the bright orange would not show through the sweater. I was afraid spray paint might eat away at the foam, so I just painted about 3 to 4 layers of white acrylic paint. Chalk paint may cover better, but I have never used chalk paint. I also started to paint the foam stem, but then decided I was not going to use this and removed it. The stem is just glued to a tooth pick and the tooth pick is just stuck into the foam pumpkin. So, it was very easy to remove. Sometimes I need to paint or glue small things, so I will use tooth picks to do this. So, I kept the stems with the toothpicks still attached for smaller projects in the future. It was nice having the foam stem attached to the tooth pick so I had something bigger to hold on to or to help hold the tooth pick off the table and thus not get the paint or glue on the table.

Once it was covered enough that the orange did not show through, and the paint was fully dry, I measured how much of the sweater I needed to use. It seems like using a sleave is the easiest to work with for this particular project. I cut the entire sleeve off, but soon realized you need less than you would think for this. The sweater stretches a bit. My sweater was quite large, so I ended up cutting the sleave almost in half. Just make sure your sleeve is wide enough to fit the pumpkin inside of it. If the sleeve can reach about half way around the pumpkin, then you should be good. Make a small to medium size hole in the top and bottom of your pumpkin. This hole will be used to stuff some of the sweater into to hold it. The hole at the top of the pumpkin will also be covered by your stem and other decorations. I used an exacto knife to the holes in the top and bottom of the pumpkin. The Styrofoam pumpkins from Dollar Tree are hollow inside. So, I cut my holes like I do when cutting the core out of a head of lettuce, at a slight angle. If you do not see the hollow inside of the pumpkin, then you did not cut the holes deep enough. I cut my sweater with scissors. It is okay if you do not cut the sweater completely straight.

Now put the cut sweater sleeve over your pumpkin. You may need to stretch the sweater out a little to get it over your pumpkin. Make sure you have the lines of your sweater facing up and down on your pumpkin. Now apply some hot glue to the inside of one of the holes you made in the pumpkin, I started with the top of my pumpkin first to insure I had enough material to cover it, and stretch a piece of the sweater to the glue spot and allow it to glue. Continue gluing down the sweater to the inside of the hole in the pumpkin until all the sweater is attached to the pumpkin and nicely glued down/tucked into the hole. I then applied some more glue over the hole to make sure there was enough hot glue holding the sweater in place. When gluing and pulling on your sweater make sure you keep the lines and detain of the sweater going straight up and down on your pumpkin.

Now flip the pumpkin over and do the same thing to the other hole, the bottom of the pumpkin. Be careful when gluing down the sweater as the hot glue may seep through your sweater some. If you cut your sweater to short and it does not reach inside the hole at the bottom, then just glue the sweater as close to the hole as you can. Then glue the piece you cut off to make the hole back onto the pumpkin. This will be like a plug for the bottom of the pumpkin so a hole is not showing. It will also help hold the sweater in place. I like extra security and glue on things. If your sweater is long enough and fits nicely inside your hole, then you can throw away the foam pieces you cut out of your pumpkin.

Now it is time to dress your pumpkin up. For my stem I just took a square scrap piece of burlap and wrapped it around itself forming a point at the top. When I was happy with the shape, this took a few tries, I glued it together, then glued it to the top of my pumpkin. A stem made out of twine would also look nice. I gave my stem a slight bend to it as I wrapped it. I then glued my stem to the top of my pumpkin covering any traces of the hole and where the sweater was glued down. I then added my sola wood flower. I decided to go with a flower that had the bark showing, since the pumpkin was all white and I needed some contrast and color. The pumpkin still needed a little something. So, I decided to add some raffia I had sitting next to me, I just had not put it away yet. It made a huge difference and really finished off the pumpkin. I attached all my extra decrative pieces with lots of hot glue. When I was taking some photos of my pumpkin to put as my featured image, I placed a colorful leaf on the pumpkin, which actually looked really nice, and made me think about possibly added some red berries. I decided to leave it how it is, but these could be some possibilities for you to add to your pumpkin.