I just can’t stop making wreaths and door hangers!  I have a sickness, people!  This is especially the case for fall, as a quick glance at my Project Gallery will confirm.

For my latest creation here, though, I decided to take a non-traditional approach to fall decor, and it is just ooooooozing with girliness (much to my husband’s dismay).  Yes, if a pumpkin can be girly, I think what I’m sharing today pretty much fits the bill.  And I absolutely LOVE it!

It’s also Silhouette Challenge time again!  Yessiree!  This month’s theme is Outdoors with a special bonus theme of Green.  I think my project here fulfills both challenges….if turquoise is considered green.  It is right?  Maybe?  More green than blue?

Either way, keep reading for all the details on my girly gourd AND to check out 14 other totally awesome projects being shared by my Challenge bloggy buddies!

 

Shabby Chic Happy Fall Pumpkin Door Hanger: My Girly Gourd

Supplies

• Wooden pumpkin cutout
• Fine sand paper disc
• White spray primer/paint
• Craft paints: turquoise, white, pink, & brown
• Foam brush
• Silhouette Cameo & cutting mat
• Stencils in 813 stencil film
• Transfer tape, painter’s tape, scraper, & scissors
• Twine, striped burlap ribbon, & hot glue

Ok, so I have a slight obsession with wooden cut outs and transforming them into door hangers (and if you look at my Project Gallery, I guess wreaths in general).  They’re just so easy and fun to play with!

So far, I’ve made a year-round Happy Everything one, a patriotic USA map for the summer, a dual-sided Valentine’s Day beauty, and also slapped my and my husband’s monogram on another burlap wreath for Cupid’s big day.  See….I love ’em!

 

Why Shabby Chic?

Since I already have several wreaths in the traditional fall/Halloween colors, I decided to make this pumpkin a little (or a lotta) non-traditional.  As in shabby chic.  As in *zero* orange or black or gold or yellow or red.  No leaves, acorns, or pinecones either.

Now shabby chic isn’t really our thing and I actually have nothing else in this style of design.  However, I still think it’s super cute!  I love the old fashioned, feminine, soft, natural vibe.  Plus, going a little crazy once in a while is fun!  At least that’s what I’m telling my husband.

This was our conversation when I texted him a mockup of my design:

Translation: “I hate it but you love it so I love it too because Happy Wife = Happy Life.”  He’s a smart man. :)  And I’m shocked he didn’t come back with “Shabby what???”

 

Prepping the Pumpkin Cutout

I first took the plain pumpkin outside and gave it a couple very light coats of white spray primer/paint, with a quick sanding in between coats.

And wouldn’t you know it that even after putting some cardboard down, I STILL managed to get paint on the grass!  I need to pay better attention when I have a can of paint in my hand, I tell ya.  And my husband made sure to point this out to me when he got home from work.  Whoops!  Sorry honey….again. ;)

 

Painting the Turquoise Base Coat

Once that was dry, I brought the pumpkin back inside and started dry brushing on some super pretty turquoise craft paint.

 

I wasn’t concerned about not getting complete coverage or having visible brush strokes.  In fact, that’s the look I was going for.  Shabby chic here, folks!  Plus I’d just end up distressing everything later so there was no sense in striving for unnecessary perfection at this phase.

 

This is what I ended up with:

 

The Base Stencil

I thought I’d jazz up the design a bit with a pattern over the whole thing, so I headed over to one of my favorite sites to score high-quality FREE SVG files: Bird’s Cards.  Seriously, they have some great stuff to offer over there….that’s why I’ve included them in my roundup of the best places to score free digital resources.  I’ve also used one of their files before for my sleeping baby door hanger.

The particular file I downloaded and used is their Background 15 file, which is a Moroccan pattern.  I’m not too sure how shabby chic Moroccan is, but I liked it so that’s what I went with.  Sorry if it’s not authentic! #nonastycommentsplease

I imported this file into Silhouette Studio then resized it over my pumpkin mockup (which I made by snapping a pic of my pumpkin, texting it to myself, then opening it up in Studio and tracing it) until I had the scale I was after.  Then I subtracted it, leaving me with the perfect pumpkin Moroccan stencil.  Boom!

My pumpkin is 16″ across, which is obviously too big for my Silhouette Cameo to cut a stencil out as one piece.  No biggie though!  I just ungrouped all the elements….

 

….then manually selected the ones that were falling off my cutting mat….

 

….and positioned them so everything now fit nicely onto my 12″ x 24″ cutting mat.  Then I finalized my Silhouette‘s cut settings.

Since I am absolutely in love with using Oramask 813 Stencil Film for painting on wood (you can check out our personalized IKEA lazy Susan or Roman Numeral anniversary sign to see why I love it so), I’ve gone in and given it a User Defined custom preset.  Here are the specifics that I use:

• Blade: 1
• Speed: 5
• Thickness: 10

 

Cutting Out the Stencils

I then loaded some 813 stencil film onto my cutting mat and into my Silhouette then got to cutting!

 

Applying the Base Stencil

And here’s the stencil after being trimmed and weeded.  You’ll notice that in my weeding excitement I accidentally discarded a few pieces on the right.  Haha, whoops!  Once again, I need to pay closer attention while getting my craft on. #badchristine

No biggie though….I just pulled some of the pieces off the stem portion of the stencil since that section would be covered with burlap anyway, and transplanted them to their new homes.  Instant fix.

 

I then slapped some transfer tape over top and applied both sections of the stencils using the hinge method, which you can read more about here if you’d like.

 

And here’s the stencil after being applied!

 

The White Paint

For this step, I grabbed some white craft paint and a foam brush….

 

….then lightly dabbed the paint all over the stencil.  Once again, I was going for a rough, aged, hand-painted look, not superb coverage.

 

See what I mean by “rough”?

 

By the time I finished painting on the white, the paint was nearly dry, so I peeled off all the sections of the stencil, leaving me with the cutest little patterned pumpkin you ever did see!  But it wasn’t cute enough yet.  Onward!

 

The Other Stencils

I then repeated the steps described above and cut out stencils for ‘HAPPY’ and ‘fall’ and also applied transfer tape to the top of each.

 

Painting the Pretty Pink

I applied the ‘fall’ stencil first and also added some painter’s tape to the edge, because like I mentioned above, I don’t seem to pay close attention when I get in the craft zone.  This buffer would come in handy when applying the paint.

 

To help prevent the turquoise paint from showing through, I first added a light coat of white paint, then hit everything again with some bright pink paint.

I just love this shade (and used it previously on my ‘Today is a Good Day to Have a Good Day’ canvas bag).  Plus, it paired with the turquoise is my favorite color combo, and very shabby chicy (I think/hope)!

 

Same thing here: light, rough dabs with the foam brush.  (And see why I added the painter’s tape border?!)

 

It’s coming together nicely, no?

 

Painting the Brown

In keeping with the shabby chic theme, the final paint color I used was a dark brown for the ‘HAPPY’ portion….

 

….and applied it in the same manner, after adding a painter’s tape border, of course.

 

Some Dainty Distressing

Now I debated this next step for quite a while.  To distress or not to distress???  I LOVED how my door hanger was looking at this point, but shabby chic stuff is supposed to look aged and worn….so that meant I had to get over my perfectionist tendencies and mess up the beautiful paint job I had just performed.  And you have no idea how much stress this caused!  But I got over it.

Some quick hand sanding with a disc of fine sand paper took care of the job.  (And please forgive me for my strange alien/bird claw of a hand in this picture.)

 

A Couple Embellishments

To add some texture and pump up the cuteness factor even more, I covered the pumpkin’s stump with a layer of burlap and also added a little bow….and let me tell you, this bow was nearly the death of me!

Bow making is without a doubt my least favorite crafting task of all time.  I’m not sure how many attempts I made until I finally threw together something that is at least halfway presentable, so don’t beat me up too much over this aspect.

And in my excitement to finally finish this beauty, I forgot to take photos of these steps.  Sorry!  But I think you can figure it out.

 

My Final Shabby Chic Happy Fall Pumpkin Door Hanger!

And here it is!  I am totally in love with my girly gourd.  It is everything I envisioned (minus my super amateur bow), and it’s the perfect non-traditional fall decoration I was after.

I love how the white pattern is very subtle and almost looks like delicate lace, and the way the pink POPS off the turquoise is just so pretty.

I can’t help it, I gotta let my girly girl out sometimes.  My husband will just have to deal with a dash of fall femininity on our front door for a few months. ;)

 

The Silhouette Challenge!

It’s Silhouette Challenge time again!  Woot Woot!  Check out 14 other totally awesome OUTDOOR projects being shared by my bloggy buddies today!

1. From Whine to Whine // 2. Small Stuff Counts // 3. Comfort and Yum // 4. Patina Paradise // 5. My Paper Craze // 6. Where The Smiles Have Been // 7. Practically Functional // 8. Get Silvered // 9. DIY Just Cuz {Brittany} // 10. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 11. Crafty Bonds // 12. Two Purple Couches // 13. Tried & True // 14. It Happens in a Blink // 15. DIY Just Cuz {Sam}

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a very happy fall! :)