I don't have people to pre-cut the veggies for my soup.
No one is around to make sure the circle of cute paper is perfectly cut. I do it old school, baby. I freehand. Aww yeah. That's how we roll here.
I'm going to share with you my adventures in trying to make a pumpkin topiary.
Google that term. You'll get lots of responses. Most with pictures. They are all so pretty. So fall. So Southern Living. And most, if not all, say how easy they are to make. Easy. That is my craft level.
I know you all are riding high on my last craft post with the modge podged pumpkins. I must admit that those were cute. I figured I was on a roll, so lets branch out to my front step. My very best friend got me started thinking when she texted me the picture of her front entry...freshly painted front door, pumpkins in the urns resting delicately in a bed of fall leaves, white pumpkins placed strategically for maximum impact and a fall-themed wreath on the wall near the door. It really looked nice. My front entry? Not so much.
Imagine dead stick-like plants in black-ish urns, aqua globes sticking out dry as a bone. Pitiful. So pitiful I was embarassed to take a picture. (no, not really. i just forgot to take a "before" picture of my front step before my daughter had thrown the dead plants away.) I told my friend that I was going for creepy instead of homey and welcoming.
So welcome to my attempt at topiarys. I'm showing you the dirty truth. Right now I'm in the middle of this project and I invite you to laugh with me as my topiaries look like pumpkin people without faces since I forgot to get the small pumpkin for the top. I'll have to fix that today. So again, go ahead and laugh at my first attempt. Goodness knows I am.
Maybe this should be the how NOT to make a pumpkin topiary. It can be a cautionary tale. I am a giver, you know.
You'll need 3 pumpkins per topiary- large, medium and small, a hot glue gun, 2 dowels and some leaves.
I had read somewhere that for the bottom pumpkin, using it upside down was easier, so I tried that. I cut off the stem, drilled a hole through the pumpkin and skewered it on the dowel. The dowel is the stake to keep it in the pot as well as the stacking mechanisim.
So now i've added the medium pumpkin on the stick. You can see the stick is NOT sticking out the top of the second pumpkin. This is because I didn't have the smallest pumpkin yet--I was planning on making a 2 pumpkin topiary here. I've also started gluing the leaves on. I just had a garland of leaves and took them off and glued them on one at a time. Sorry for the awkwardness of this picture. I was holding my pumpkin-on-a-stick and trying to do the picture. For next time, maybe I'll work on the pumpkins while they are in the urn.
So here is the finished product- sort of. They weren't tall enough for me and they really didn't look finished. (See the AquaGlobes? I really have them. I really used them. Except they don't work unless you actually put water IN them. Go figure.) At this point I went ahead and cut the stem off the middle pumpkin and shoved the dowel up through that one as well. This would give my small pumpkin something to sit on.
I have to make a quick run to Michael's. Talk amongst yourselves while I get those last pumpkins.
So here it is with the small pumpkin on top. They aren't too terrible. My kids thought they looked like orange snowmen. Not exactly the look I was going for, but I'll take what I can get. I need to get better at the decorative leaf placement. They don't teach that in Home Ec.
My front door! The ghost is not homemade. It was a gift from my mom. I can tell you it is just a hanger stretched out and bent to make the arms, the hanger is where the head is and it has stuffing around it, tied at the neck. The hat is black burlap and the white is something like cheesecloth.
But check out the topiaries! Not too Halloween-y and I can leave them out till after Thanksgiving! My pilgrim people will look quite festive next to them. I love double-duty decorations.
Happy Tuesday, Ya'll.
I love this!!
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