Muslin Pumpkin LOVE!

So, as I’ve mentioned in my post about my Texas Fall Mantle, I am not a fan of Fall.  I am a total spring and summer girl through and through.  In fact, I have even been diagnosed with Seasonal Depression.  So, not only do I dislike Fall, but frankly, it makes me depressed.  It truly has nothing to do with Fall or Winter, but the amount of sunlight I don’t get during those months due to the shortened days.  Vitamin D3 and I are good friends throughout October-February!

My point in all of this is… I don’t ever decorate for Fall.

Now, Christmas, that’s a whole different story!!!

So after decorating my mantle, I decided to decorate my buffet table.  In fact, every time I walked past it I heard this faint little voice.. “When is it my turn to get dressed up?  Please, oh please, decorate me!”

Well, you can’t ignore the antique buffet.

She’s beautiful.

I love her.

I listen to her.

She’s one of those pieces I bought on Craigslist for $75, refinished her, and then couldn’t possibly entertain the thought of selling her!  Plus, she talks to me.  You can’t sell furniture that talks to you.  It’s like selling your children.  Well.. not quite.

I slowly started adding some Fall decorations to her, but something was missing.  So, I got this idea to make a pumpkin out of muslin.

It went something like this..

Blow up a balloon.

Originally, I sat it in a jar to help keep it stable.

It didn’t work.

Use a bowl instead.

Cut strips of muslin fabric.  Most of my strips were about an inch wide and a foot long… give or take a few.

Soak them in the liquid starch.  You want them to be completely soaked.

Starting at the top, center of the balloon, begin layering your strips vertically.  I chose to go this way because I wanted it to somewhat resemble a pumpkin when I was done.

Here I was still using the jar.

Not smart.

It fell over several times.

I got messy.

See, the bowl works MUCH better!

Wait 24 hours… or longer… for it to dry.

I’m impatient.

I had to work on other things in order to forget about this project.  Luckily, I started on it the morning before, so I had 8 hours of sleeping time in there too!

After 24 hours of drying, I was able to pop the balloon.  That was soooo fun!!!

You’ve got to try it!!

I cut a large hole in the lid of my Ball jar and stuffed cinnamon sticks inside.

Now, here’s the tricky part.  Because the pumpkin is made out of muslin, it has some places where it isn’t as strong as others.  Mostly up around the top.  I only did one layer of muslin, but in some places, I added two.  In the places where there are two layers, it is much stronger.  I would recommend doing two layers if you decide to attempt this.

Since mine wasn’t as stable as I liked, I stuck a jar on the inside to hold up my stem.

My original idea was to put a candle inside, punch holes in the top and allow the heat to warm up the cinnamon sticks and create, not only a wonderful aroma, but also a little glow.  No matter how many holes I punched in the lid, the candle went out every time.

I may go back and add an electric candle because I think the glow inside the pumpkin would look really neat.

I placed the jar inside and gathered the fabric up and around the cinnamon sticks.  Once I had it gathered up the way I liked, I tied a burlap and orange ribbon around the sticks and fabric to hold it in place.

Here is my muslin pumpkin with my fall decorated buffet.

I could hear my buffet whispering yet again, “Please show all of me on your blog!  I’m gorgeous!!”

I’m learning that she’s quite the diva.

Now she is all decked out for Fall!

Maybe I’ll learn to love Fall after all.

Happy Fall Ya’ll!!

I’m Linking Up to these great parties…..