~ Hello October ~ Countdown to Halloween! Pumpkin Topiary

It is the joyful month of October! One of the fun things I've seen around Blogland in the last few years is  the different inventive kinds of a count down "clock" for kids to count the days until  Halloween. I wish someone had thought of that when I was young. It would have made this fun Holiday last longer. Even if there is no count down clock around here we are still on Halloween watch anyway. And the fun is just about to begin. With just one little project at a time. 

For the last few years there has been a pumpkin topiary somewhere in the decor. I like the combination of the black and white with a little soft pumpkin color too. The light streaming in through the window bounces playfully around the silver pieces and actually makes the matte black pumpkin a bit shinier looking in the photo. This year I made the topiary in a Mercury glass goblet.  The Mercury pumpkins are a delightful addition again this year. The fun reflective sparkle certainly brightens the mood Fall, and adding more Mercury glass pieces just adds to the reflective light.

You can make a topiary of your own out of faux pumpkins that you can keep and rearrange year after year. The bottom white pumpkin and the top peachy gourd are both ceramic, but you can easily use foam ones instead. It best to use a foam one for the middle, and maybe the top as well, because you might need to poke a hole in the bottom if the pumpkin below it has a stem that you want to hide. I used some sticky putty to keep the top one in place since I could not poke a hole in the ceramic gourd.

The pumpkins started out that ugly orange color that most inexpensive faux pumpkins are born with. For the white pumpkin and soft pumpkin colored gourd I started out with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White. The white one was then dry brushed with some Pure White. The gourd was painted with Old White mixed with red and yellow to get the soft pumpkin color, then dry brushed with Old White. The black pumpkin was spray painted with either Fusion or Universal black paint.  Both spray paints are very good for painting the foam. Of course you can also use a liquid latex although you may have to touch them up over the years if you don't use a primer.

Come back soon to see more clips of Halloween decorating, and then a post of all the elements of the whole holiday decor.

~ See Y'All Soon ~