The Old Tattered Flag

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Cement pumpkins


On a beautiful day last week, during open hooking at our shop some of the ladies and I decided to make some of the fabulous cement pumpkins we have seen all over pinterest and facebook.  So I scoured the stores for the plastic pumpkin "molds" and found some at our local Walmart and some smaller ones at a dollar store.  


I went to Lowes and asked them what would be a good consistency cement and a young man who thought it was "so cool" guided me to the mortar mix....


So, we started mixing....


We wanted the consistency of peanut butter...


Once we got the right consistency we started filling our pumpkins.  It is important to look for pumpkins that have the shape of the pumpkin inside the pouring area.  We bought some "carvable" pumpkins at the dollar store and though we got little round pumpkins, they did not have any definition "bumps".  

For the stems we wanted some different things.  Annette brought over some rusty railroad ties.  I have some spindly grapevine and some wooden spindles.  


With the consistency of the cement being like peanut butter we pounded the pumpkins down to ensure that they cement filled in all areas and no air bubbles would be there.  We then stuck in our stems......


I wanted to use unique wooden spindles for my pumpkin stems...


                             ......but the railroad ties are very cool too..........


                                                     ......oh yes, I do like the spindle!


                              Probably the worse part of this whole project was cutting off the plastics.  I highly recommend cutting it off in sections.  As you can see below I probably went a little bit too high with my cement but, I still like it.  You can dry brush your cement with orange paint, but I decided to leave mine alone.  Perhaps they'd be neat with some mossy growth on them, which can be achieved by rubbing yogurt all over and letting them "age" and grow the moss outside.


Voila!!  I just love them.  


Until next time.....



5 comments:

Jacqueline said...

love your pumpkins.. thanks for walking us thru the process. How did you get the plastic cut off?

Lori from Notforgotten Farm said...

oh what fun!!!! thanks for the step-by-step ~ they all came out awesome!
L

Unknown said...

We had sprayed the pumpkins with Pam so they slid right out, but it was hard to cut the plastic off. Annette used a cutting tool on her dremel and said it worked like a charm.....next time!! Thanks Jacqueline!

Unknown said...

Thanks Lori!

imsteelefullofscrap said...

I have so been wanting to make them but can't find the railroad spikes, how many can u make with one bag of mortar

About Me

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog. I am married and just entering the second phase of my life as a Army retiree's wife. My husband and I did 25+ years in the Army. He is now officially a retired Colonel and has just entered the civilian workforce and I am happily settled in our 1830 Stone house. I (along with my Mom) operate www.theoldtatteredflag and currently we are building a small shop in the back part of the house. We live in Northern NY, right near the Canadian border. I have two handsome sons and 2 puggles. Life is busy for us, but I wouldn't have it any other way.