A Bootiful Designer Pumpkin For Fall

Love it or hate it, Dollar Tree has some great supplies for fall decorating. All it takes is a little out of the box thinking and you can create lovely home decor pieces in minutes.

And they'll look like they cost much more than a dollar.

Alright, I'm going to say it, and you probably won't believe it based on all my inexpensive craft posts lately.

But, I, the self proclaimed queen of cheap DIYs, used to be a Dollar Tree snob.

I was.

I really, truly disliked that store.

I shopped there only when forced to and I never considered it to be a place I would find supplies for the kind of elegant, high end looking home decor I was intent on making.

And I certainly didn't think of it as a legit craft store.

My, my how times have changed.

How I have changed.

I mean just look any one of the last few projects around here. If they're not made solely with Dollar Tree supplies, there are remnants of them in too many to count.

Clearly, I've become a huge fan. 

Now, when I walk through the doors, I go straight to the seasonal aisle, then I hit the arts and craft aisle and then I browse around to see what else I can find that might be useful in my creative pursuits.

Take this week, for example. My husband and I were driving by a Dollar Tree one evening and decided to stop in, just for a minute.

That's all I needed to spot these Halloween stencil stickers for pumpkins. I had to have them.

Of course, I'm not usually a pithy pumpkin saying kind of decorator...although I have been known to decorate like this before. 

And on face value, it's not the kind of decor that publications like Cottages and Bungalows would ever feature.

Plus, I'm not usually a big fan of decorating for Halloween. 

However. I thought that one of the sayings was adorable...and I had an idea.

Remember this pumpkin.

It was one of pair I decided to keep and makeover rather than donate. The smaller one got a floral decoupage upgrade. 

This one was going to get lettered.

It was honestly about a 10 minute craft, but it's so charming, it looks like it took me much longer...and it looks hand painted.

But nope.

I just chose a saying from the package and peeled the letters away from the backing, carefully, because they are a thin vinyl material.


Then I placed them on the pumpkin.

A word of warning, some of the letters are in two pieces.

That made the peeling and placement a bit trickier, but it was easy enough to gently pull them away from the pumpkin to reposition them if necessary. (And, just between us, it was necessary!)


When I was done I decided to add a few vinyl decal flowers with transparent backings <-- similar to these.


Again, I just peeled the blooms away from their backings and placed them on the pumpkin.

Round shapes are always a little tricky, so you might need to use the scissors to cut the vinyl in a few places so it sticks properly.
The lower portion of the pumpkin was flatter so no cutting was needed in that spot.

When I was satisfied with my pumpkin decorating, I set my eyes on the display. For that I grabbed a thrifted urn, some Dollar Tree beaded garland and moss.


Moss is expensive...and messy...so I try not to use a lot of it. Although it can be reused, since I didn't glue it, but it gets dusty sitting out.

Anyway, to mitigate having to use too much, I stuffed my urn with a large piece of my favorite crafting paper and set the moss on top of it.


Then I placed the pumpkin inside and gently wrapped the garland around it.

When I was done, like I said, a mere 10 minutes later, I had one more elegantly decorated pumpkin to add to my collection.

One with a bit of whimsy and humor that can decorate my kitchen or my dinner table.


And one that the old me would never have guessed was created with anything that came out of the dollar store.

Boy was I wrong.

😉

Are you a Dollar Tree decorator?

Happy Crafting, Friends!