Fall is here and I’m all about a great pumpkin decorating DIY. My plan for the next few weeks is to show some fun and creative pumpkin decorating ideas until Halloween. First up – copper is huge for fall this year and I had this vision of matte, chalky pumpkins with speckles of copper leaf in a real rough, artsy fartsy kind of painterly look.  YES. So so fab, right? Except … sometimes the best laid plans? Yeah well …

Internet, let me be clear. These did not turn out exactly the way I thought it would. But I’m going to go ahead and show you because we’ve all been there done that with the less-than-perfect crafts, amiright? And to be fair, these are lovely. Just not exactly how I envisioned them.

I had this creative epiphany of smooth chalky pale pumpkins in the different shades of Pantone’s Fall 2016 color trends and I wanted to then apply copper leaf to them in the same manner as these Easter eggs I did a few years ago. Eggs have a naturally matte finish to them, which makes them absorb the color so well. (Not so with regular ol’ pie pumpkins, unfortunately.) Also? Eggs don’t have a bajillion little nooks and crannies in which to totally screw up your OCD vision of smooth shiny copper leaf bliss.

So first I painted my (real) baby pumpkins with acrylic paint, which was maybe my first mistake. I went with acrylics because the colors were much better than the chalk paint offerings. If I were to do this all over again, I might start with white chalk paint and add whatever bits of acrylic paint in the pigment of my choice until I got the desired intensity.

OR just go ahead and spray paint ’em and call it a day.

OR just go ahead and buy Cinderella pumpkins or other white ones that are naturally matte if you don’t care about what color they are.

OR just go straight to Target and buy whatever cute pumpkins they have readymade because WHO ON EARTH HAS TIME FOR THIS (unless you find painting and foiling therapeutic which I kind of do, in which CARRY ON, PUMPKIN DECORATING SOUL SISTER).

It’s a Choose Your Own Adventure DIY over here at Pencil Shavings, y’all.

The larger pie pumpkin was WAY easier to leaf than the babies. Be sure and let the adhesive get nice and tacky, but not totally dry. Also, I bought two packages of copper leaf and only used about half of one package. I think this would be gorgeous on a white pumpkin.

And to be fair, they did turn out lovely, if a bit … flakier than anticipated. Kind of like copper foil leprosy, if you will.  In other words, be prepared for the leaves to be, how shall we say, temperamental.

So there you have it. A less than perfect pumpkin decorating DIY. But hey, that’s what it’s about, right? Creativity isn’t about being perfect — it’s about the process, which was immensely satisfying.

Now excuse me — I’ve got to go pick copper leaf flakes out of my rug.