PAINTED PUMPKINS

Pumpkin painting is never going out of style! It is something that can be done with your children or just a wonderful addition to your Fall decor. Painted pumpkins can sometimes look well painted! follow along to see how to make your faux Pumpkins look more real, using Fusion. It is the perfect craft project for the family this long weekend.

Plastic orange pumpkins & scattered paint supplies

MATERIALS USED

Fusion Mineral Paint Tuscan Orange
Fusion Mineral Paint Pressed Fern
Fusion Mineral Paint Peony
Fusion Mineral Paint Inglenook
Fusion Mineral Paint Damask
Milk Paint by Fusion Millenial Pink
Milk Paint by Fusion Aperol Spritz
Fusion Ageing Wax
Fusion White Wax
Sandpaper
Dollar Store faux pumpkins
Real pumpkin stems (optional)
Peanut Shells
Chip brushes
Staalmeester brushes

Three pints of fusion paint, peony, damask and tuscan orange

Birds eye view of pumpkin stems and a staalmeester brush

How to make faux pumpkins look real

We love the fact that faux pumpkins last forever, but they often look very cheap and unrealistic. So to elevate them a bit, and make them look more realistic, we did two different styles. In one batch we painted them in true pumpkin colours (we used Fusion Mineral Paint Tuscan Orange and Pressed Fern and textured some with Aperol Spritz Milk Paint by Fusion.

Putting a stem onto a plastic orange pumpkin

Hand holding pumpkin stem above plastic orange pumpkin

Plastic orange pumpkin with a few paint strokes pf damask

Scooping clumpy millenial pink milk paint

For the other batch, we wanted to give them the look of heirloom pumpkins, like the Cinderella pink heirloom pumpkins (for these we used Fusion Mineral Paint Damask, Peony, and Millenial Pink Milk Paint by Fusion to add texture. We all love blue pumpkins too, but if you are not lucky to find them in your neck of the woods, you can easily paint them for these we used Fusion Mineral Paint Inglenook!

Spooning millennial pink milk paint out of jar

Painting clumpy millennial pink milk paint onto pumpkin.

Hand picking up a textured pink pumpkin by the stem

Painting orange pumpkin with Inglenook fmp

Birds eye view of 8 pumpkins, some pink and some blue

Side view of 8 pumpkins, some painted pink and some blue

Close up of blue pumpkin, in the background you can see another blue pumpkin and some pink ones

Close up of pink pumpkin, in the background there is a pink blanket and another pink pumpkin

Close up birds eye view of three pink pumpkins

Painted Pumpkins

What makes most faux pumpkins look fake is the stem, so we removed the original plastic ones and glued on real pumpkins’ stems. We also gave each faux pumpkin an overall sanding to remove the glossy finish before applying our paint. For the ones where we added texture, we simply mixed the milk paint powder very thick and painted it on.

Someone's hand dipping a sponge into the lid of tuscan orange fmp

Dabbing tuscan orange fmp onto plastic pumpkin

Two pumpkins, one bright orange and one orange with green stripes

Painting furniture wax onto pink pumpkin

Pink pumpkin with furniture wax on it to create dimension

For the warty-looking pumpkin, we glued on peanut shells. To enhance the indentation on the pumpkins after painting, we strategically applied either Fusion Ageing Wax or White wax in that area.