Summer All Year Long: Creative Fall Decor

Fall is my favorite season; the combination of pumpkin beer, crisp cool air, and fall colors, it really makes this time of year all that much more special. I knew that I wanted to build my fall decor collection and thought it would be fun to hand make something. So I scoured Pinterest one night, and I came across a cute idea for Pumpkin Decor. So naturally, I decided that was my next project!

What you'll need to do this project:

Screws
Drill
Wood Glue (optional)
Stain (optional)
2"x4"s or smaller size wood - available at any Home Depot or Lowes
saw (jigsaw preferably)
partner in crime? in my case, my husband

To keep costs down, I recommend sticking to 2"x4"s for all the pumpkins, as each board runs between $1-$2 (with 4-6 boards per pumpkin). However, for this project I decided to do 3 different styles of pumpkins with all different types of wood, which made the cost of the project jump from about $30 to around $70+. This is completely optional, but having a variety of pumpkin shapes add a bit more dimension. Not to mention, it makes it a bit more interesting to look at.

For today, I'm going to focus on the cheaper of the options, which is the 2"x4" wood slats - at about 70 inches long. The wood I bought was pre-cut fencing wood from The Home Depot that had a red color intertwined throughout.

I measured and cut two 32" pieces from each board (I purchased 6 boards at $1.90/ea) then laid them all out:

With some extra pieces of wood, I laid two boards perpendicular and drilled each of the bottom boards to those two extra pieces:

Next, it's time to get your pumpkin on! I took a pencil and drew out a pumpkin shape on the back side of the boards. I drew it a little bigger than I thought I wanted, that way there was plenty of room to make it smaller or change the shape a bit. You can always make things smaller, but you can't make them bigger:

Next, time to cut out the pumpkin!! I don't have a jigsaw-which I recommend for this project- so I had to use a band saw (the husband actually did this job). This took two people to do, one to help support the boards/pumpkin (it was quite heavy!) and the second to guide the boards along the blade following the pencil line:

Once the shape is cut out, sand down all the sides to give it a smooth surface on all edges.

Then, with some scrap wood, cut out the shape of a stem (get that saw back out!). Or if you have a tree that needs trimming in your yard, it would be cute to use a thick branch as a replica for the stem of the pumpkin. Then, simply drill the stem into the back of the pumpkin. It's important to use screws that are short enough that they wont poke all the way through the wood to the front.

*The picture below is one of the other two pumpkins made, but is the exact same as the big red pumpkin.

To add a little bit of dimension to the pumpkin, we distressed the stem and the edges of the pumpkin with some fire (used a portable propane bottle):

Last, the stand. This part was way easier than I thought it would be. I measured and cut a piece of wood the length of the bottom of the pumpkin plus 1 inch on each side, squared the corners and drilled two-three screws into the bottom. It sat perfect!