Pumpkin Shadow "Box"

This is a project I did last year. You know those craft pumpkins you see at your local craft store? Well they make the cutest "shadow box" for Halloween! Unfortunately I created this project before I blogged, so I did not take step-by-step photos, but I will try my best to describe the steps in creating my pumpkin.

Supplies:

Craft Pumpkin

Knife

Marker or pencil

Round, flat styrofoam piece found in the floral section of your craft store

Moss

Crepe paper and needle and thread

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

12x12 Piece of scrapbook paper

Vintage photo or clip art

Decorative pieces for inside your shadow box

Using a pencil, I drew my opening on the front of my craft pumpkin and where I needed to cut with my knife. I then decided to also cut the back half of my pumpkin. You can leave the back of our pumpkin on if you like, I just chose to cut mine off. Using a knife that I didn't mind dulling, I cut along my pencil line and removed the cut-outs.

Here's the back of my pumpkin. I laid the pumpkin down and traced  the outline on a piece of 12x12 scrapbook paper and set the paper aside to glue onto my pumpkin once I had the inside all built.

If you look closely, you will see moss on the floor of my pumpkin. I cut my round styrofoam piece to fit inside my pumpkin and used hot glue to secure it, and then I covered the styrofoam with moss, which I also used hot glue to secure. For a fun look, you could spray paint your moss black or silver or whatever color, and add some glitter spray to the moss. I of course think of this after my pumpkin is all built.

Once you've laid your ground piece (the moss), now you can add all the fun pieces inside. I found a little glitter tree in the floral section of Michael's, and a little glitter witch cut-out that I placed onto a round piece of gold glitter paper for a moon. I glued the moon and witch onto the piece of scrapbook paper I had set aside. 

The black and white photo is a photo I found of my grandmother Dot and her brother Jim when they were little. They're sitting on top of an old stump, and I loved how Jim had his arms wrapped around his sister Dot. I printed the photo onto some glossy photo paper and then used some makers to add color to their clothing, hair and a little color to their cheeks. I then cut out the photo and left a little base, which I folded back. I also added a little witches hat and placed it on top of my grandma's head and then added some black glitter to her mary janes. I added a little "Trick or Treat" banner and glued it onto the front of the stump. If you don't have a vintage photo, you can search the internet for free vintage photos or clip art.

You can kind of see in the photo below the strip of card stock I added to the back of the photo to hold it up. Very much like how a photo frame would stand up.

Around the front opening of my pumpkin, I hot glued crepe paper which I gathered with a needle and thread. I laid a strip of orange, then black, and another strip of orange crepe paper and then weaved my needle and thread down the stacked strips of crepe paper and gathered it until I had the desired length for my opening. I then folded my gathered crepe paper in half and used a hot glue gun to glue it to the opening. I must warn you that you will more than likely end up with some hot glue gun burns on your fingers like I did!

And because you can never have too much glitter or bling, I hot glued some glitter leaves that I found in the floral section of Michael's onto the top of my pumpkin. 

Lastly, once I had my pumpkin built and embellished, I used more hot glue to glue the scrapbook paper I had set aside onto the back of my pumpkin.

And here sits my pumpkin on the buffet in our dining room. A one of a kind shadow box!

Jenny