I’ve always believed September 1st is the unofficial start of fall. Pumpkin spice lattes should be out soon, Halloween candy is available in stores and I think it’s acceptable to start working on fall décor without getting strange looks from your neighbors. So how about we kickoff September with a pumpkin decorating idea? This month the Michaels Makers were challenged to decorate pumpkins. It’s one of my favorite challenges! The past few years I’ve worked on a pumpkin topiary, an Elsa Pumpkin – one of my most popular posts, and a pumpkin vase as part of my Michaels Makers challenge. This year I’m sharing an easy DIY Pumpkin Diorama.
I wanted to make this pumpkin look spooky…but without scaring the kids. They love the Lemax Spooky Town decorations so I knew using a graveyard gate inside the diorama would be perfect! I added paper bats flying around the pumpkin and it fits perfectly with my usual black & white Halloween décor.
DIY Pumpkin Diorama
Supplies:
Large pumpkin
Black paint
Halloween decorations/Lemax graveyard gate
1 inch thick Styrofoam block
moss
hot glue
bats
Step one: I’m using a precut pumpkin but you could easily carve one with a pumpkin knife or hot tool. Paint the inside of the pumpkin using acrylic paint and a brush.
Step two: cut your Styrofoam block so that it fits inside the pumpkin. You could skip this step but I wanted to add some height to my diorama. Then cover the Styrofoam block with moss using a hot glue gun. Be very careful when hot gluing moss! It’s thin and can easily burn your fingers if it seeps through.
Step three: place your decorations inside. I’m using a graveyard decoration from the Lemax collection. My kids LOVE the lemax décor, especially the musicaldecorations!
Step four: add paper bats around the pumpkin using a cricut machine or precut bats from the paper crafting section. Sometimes Michaels will carry these where the Halloween paper crafting/party décor is displayed.
The graveyard entrance is battery powered, displaying a green glow on the bottom and orange lights at the top. My kids like turning it on at night and watching the graveyard diorama glow.
More Halloween ideas:
These are great ideas. I’m sure my son could get some great ideas from these.
I love your pumpkin diorama so much! I’d love it if you shared it on my Friday Favorites Linky Party on condoblues(dot)com this week.
I just love this tutorial and would love to use the first photo of the DIY PUMPKIN DIORAMA for my article that I’m writing on TODAY.com. Please let me know if I have your permission to feature it!