Have you noticed the grapevine garland at your craft store? People use it for all different reasons and decorations….but I realized I could turn some into a pumpkin. And for so cheap, why not?
All you’ll need is some grapevine garland and some floral wire. If you can find dark brown wire, that would be best.
(I paid about $3 for my garland……if you can’t find it locally for around that price, there’s a link here and here to buy some online. But if it starts getting too pricey…..then it’s not worth it and you’d be better off just buying the pumpkin already made. Just thought I’d share!)
Start by unwinding your garland. Then make a loop at one end, letting the very end hang out because this will become the vine of the pumpkin at the end. Then start wrapping some floral wire around the grapevine, securing the loop in place. Pull it tight. ( Just use your whole roll of wire because you’ll be using a lot……you don’t want to cut a big piece of wire and try wrapping that around and around. It will get all tangled and messy if you do.)
Then make another loop and continue winding the wire around both loops several times……pulling really tight. And I mean tight…..otherwise it won’t hold its shape. Yes, your hands may get a bit sore. The grapevine is kind of pokey.
Continue to add one loop at a time, making sure the loops are all about the same size…..and pulling tight as you wrap the wire around each loop several times before adding a new loop.
Here’s what you’ll have at the end.
The spread all of your section around to form a sphere shape.
Then, the garland that I bought had little pieces of the grapevine wrapped around the garland to keep it all together. So I just cut that off…..
And then I spread all of the pieces apart.
But you might find large gaps in your sphere……
So turn it over to the bottom and pull a little from each side of the gap and pinch it together…
And then wrap some wire around it.
And then pull together any other gaps that you may notice…..keeping all of the wire along the bottom so that you’ll never see it.
Then, turn your pumpkin back over and collect all of the ends and hold them together really tight, as you wrap wire around them to keep them in place.
(Then, since I didn’t have any brown wire, I just spray painted my wire with some brown and it softened it a lot. You can still see the wire but with the pumpkin looking so rustic…..I figured it didn’t matter.)
And you’re done. Another nice autumn decoration to add to your home.
Note: One thing I may do differently next time is soak the grapevine for a day and see how it works using pliable grapevine. Then, as it dries, it will keep its shape….just how you’d like it. So give it a try if you’re wanting to try something new. (Pssst…..then let me know how it turned out!!!)