Velvet Pumpkin Tutorial

I am not traditional in my Fall decorating. Those of you that have followed me through the years know I am not a fan of Fall. When everyone talks about the beautiful trees changing colors, I think to myself that they were so much prettier green. I am an Oregonian after all, I love our green.

For the last couple years I have been saving pumpkin stems. The other day I saw a velvet pumpkin at my daughter's house that she had bought at an antique store. It made me decide it was time to give it a try and make some velvet pumpkins!

I started by looking for something round to use to trace around. This is a 16 inch circle and makes a good small pumpkin.To make a bigger pumpkin I measured 4 inches out all the way around and cut it out.

This is some velvet that Janae bought me as a gift years ago to recover a chair. I never ended up recovering that chair and I so love the velvet so decided to use a piece to make a pumpkin. This velvet is called something like burnout velvet and is so gorgeous. You can also get cheaper kind of stretchy velvet that works really well. I have seen some people find velvet skirts and things at thrift stores and make them into pumpkins. I am keeping my eye out but haven't found any thrift store velvet yet.

The next thing you do is do a running stitch around the outer edge of the circle. I wanted to use a stronger thread than just the normal kind so all I had is yellow--which worked fine because you really don't see it anyway.

It doesn't have to be perfect by any means and you are just doing this to gather up the top.

Next I just gathered up the top a bit so I could put some beans on the bottom. White beans would be the best if your fabric is see through but I had pinto beans so that is what I went with. This adds weight to the bottom of your pumpkin making it sit nicely. You can also use rice.

After putting some beans on the bottom I filled the rest with stuffing.

At this point I cinched up the threads and went back and forth stitching the top closed.

The next step you can leave out if you want. I went down through the middle with my needle and thread, all the way through to the bottom, made a stitch and then did it a couple more times. This gives it more of a pumpkin shape. If you want a totally round pumpkin then just skip this step.

Next I picked the stem I liked the best on it from my collection of dried stems from the last couple years. There is nothing to drying them--I just let them dry naturally. I put hot glue on the bottom of the stem.

Then I just held the stem in place for a minute.

At this point you can add flowers, pearls or anything you want. I wanted to keep these simple. I added a little twig that the dogs brought in to my white pumpkin and I think it looks really cute.

That is it! They were really easy and they look so cute and Fall like in my home, while still going with my color scheme. I am pleased!

I hope this finds everyone enjoying their day--

Thanks for visiting!