Yes it’s still summer, but yes the anticipation of fall is one of my favorite times of the year other than fall itself and if you’re also a devoted pumpkin fan, you agree that the season of pumpkin everything never feels long enough, yea??  This month’s Michaels Makers Challenge is decorating craft pumpkins, and I always like to go with a  modern, no-carve option that’s easy to do, kind of like everything else minus maybe the no-carve part.

I took inspiration from the splattering/speckling designs I’ve been seeing a lot on ceramics, particularly the messier and streakier ones where you can sense the force and direction of the splatter.  While the less premeditated the better, this technique takes practice to get those messy but still defined results.  I definitely recommend practicing on paper before doing this on your pumpkins.

I used these craft pumpkins and spray painted the large one white, one of the small ones black, and hand painted the other small one with this peachy pink color I can’t get over.

The most delicate part is getting the right consistency of diluted acrylic paint to splatter with.  I’d estimate using one part acrylic paint with one part water, maybe err on the side of less water, but the consistency of the mixture should be somewhere around pancake batter.  If it’s too thin, the splatters will drip, but if it’s too thick then the splattering will take more force to achieve.  Practice first on getting the right consistency.

Next, load the brush with the diluted paint and sharply whip it downward over the pumpkin.  The paint will travel far and get all over your stuff if you do it inside, so this should for sure be done outside on a protected surface.  I wanted the speckling to cover mostly the bottom portion of the pumpkins, so I placed them top down and rotated them around to splatter after each side dried a bit.  Because of the round shape of the pumpkin, it’s harder to get the less streaky round splatters you see on the kraft paper above, so it takes some practice but also don’t try to be perfect about it either!

Fall 2016 desk pet.  This one is the clear favorite and is keeping me on this longest lasting blush pink kick I’ve ever had.  I need to do more with this color.

For more pumpkin decorating ideas, check out the projects from the other Michaels Makers here!