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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Glammed Up Glittered Gourds

Once upon a time, a redhead who resembled an evil, manic Disney Princess
fell in love with a pumpkin.
The pumpkin was sparkly and luscious and loved her back.
But her wallet did not approve of the relationship.
Heartbroken, the Princess was swept into a romance with a glittery copper
kind of guy. It was fun, but she still longed for her Knight in Shining Silver.
Where there's a Rustoleum Chrome, there's a way.
Besides silver spray paint, you'd better have:
1 foam craft pumpkin from the Dollar Tree
School glue, like Elmer's
3 silk leaves
20 inches of heavy gauge silver wire
Wire cutters
A pencil
Silver glitter
A hot glue gun and sticks
Tiny seed beads in pearl, silver, black, and clear
Friendly birds and mice that will work if you sing
Remember these carvable foam pumpkins from Dollar Tree?
2 coats of chrome later, they were mirror bright.
Now how much would you pay?
But wait, don't answer yet!
We'll also throw in a selection of our small silk leaves
ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
NOW how much would you pay???
Don't answer that!
We're going to spray paint both sides of these until
you can see yourself in the surface!
Tell them what they've won, Bob!
(Announcer Voice Over)
It's a new shaker of silver glitter!
Ahem.
Okay, I'm done with game show and Disney references.
Besides, we need to play with glue.
Put down some newspaper.
Using plain old white school glue, outline the leaves.

Sprinkle silver glitter liberally on the leaves, obviously
concentrating on the edges.
If you can see white, keep going.
Allow this to dry for an hour.
Yes, all of them.
You're learning patience reading my blog, aren't you?
Once the leaves are dry, shake off the excess glitter.
And of course you're going to fold the newspaper in half and pour all that
unused glitter back into the container, tight?
See? I knew I didn't have to say anything.

Plug in your hot glue gun.
Cut an 8" length of heavy gauge silver wire.
Place the wire on the back of one leaf and glop on some hot glue, totally
burying the end of the wire.

Do the same with the other two leaves, placing them at opposite
sides of the wire, pointing up at about a 45 degree angle.

Criss cross the glue over the wire.
You don't want these going anywhere.
While this is drying and cooling...
...pour the beads into a shallow dish.
~Extreme close up of my mix~
Take the hot glue and working in sections, drape a thick streak
of glue about 1/3 of the way down the side of the pumpkin.
There is no need to be even or exact.
Variation will add to the look.

Roll the glue in the bead mix and press them into the glue with your fingertips.
Feel free to use a toothpick if you're a little sensitive to burning your fingerprints off.
Roll it again if necessary,
and add more glue if you need to.
Your mother isn't here, and neatness doesn't count.

Keep going until you have solids falls of beads all the way around.
Press in more beads if you need to by hand.
Not bad, eh?
Now allow this to cool and dry.
To kill time while all that's going on, take the rest of the wire
and wrap it around the pencil.
You were wondering about the pencil, weren't you?
Leave a little tail of it straight.
Slide your curl off the pencil.
Poke it into the pumpkin right next to the stem.
Poke the wire with leaves in right next to it.
Bend the wires, fuss, position and arrange.
It looks silly.
Do it again.
THERE ya go, that looks good.
Voila'!
Beaded glory for approximately $2.75!
Let's recap...

Thirty bucks...
...two seventy-five.
I don't see $27.25 worth of difference her people, do you?
And now, we get to be together to live happily ever after.
True love always wins in the end.
Your turn, Virtual Besties...
Hack One Up!

We have our first Hacker!
 PJ from Planned in Pencil took this Dollar Tree platter...
...and Krylonified it into a fabulous faux pewter platter
to amp up the look of her sister's upcoming Halloween party!
 And doesn't this super easy touch really take this from something cheap
to something special?
They need a lot more decorations.
Which means, they have more goodies to create.
Which means, PJ has a LOT of reasons to play along with us!
Grab a drink, grab the button, and sniff a little adhesive with us.
(WARNING: Life in Rehab does not openly condone sniffing anything
or doing anything remotely similar.
Calling your cat names is fine.
Using your husband's toothbrush to clean the grout is not.
We don't openly condone that either.
And no, it doesn't matter what he did.
What was I saying?)







10 comments:

Gail @Purple Hues and Me said...

Very nice!!!! Just like the real deal!

PJ @ Planned in Pencil said...

I have that pumpkin, and was wandering around the house last night looking for my can of silver silver spray paint. Great minds!

Poor pumpkin needs something!

Im off to find something else to hack.

Thanks for sharing my hack!

lisbonlioness said...

Oh my goodness... that might just be your best hack ever!!
That bead soup is the perfect touch, and I am in love with the little swirly wire thing. SCREAM!!
And that plate you featured went from "I wouldn't even buy it from the charity shop" to "I need a full set of those, and fast"
This is going to be a rather classy affair, me thinks!

Michelle L. said...

Oh my gourd, that is fabulous. I love the beads driiiping down the sides. You know, I have so many seed beads but never use them in jewelry 'cause they're too finicky for me. THIS is what I should do with them! Great start to the hack off...I hope I can join in, yikes, i thought I had a whole other week.

Danni@SiloHillFarm said...

That is one fabulously glitterized pumpkin! Way to go! I'm inspired! The pewter skull tray is seriously cool and I'm off to tell her so!

Gail @Purple Hues and Me said...

PS - Don't know if your button works on my blog. I've hacked somethings,too. http://plumperfectandme.blogspot.com/2012/09/spider-ring.html

Musings from Kim K. said...

Brilliant! Love the idea of using up my stash of seed beads on this project.

Rhissanna said...


It's glorious!I hope you and the pumpkin live happy ever after! You did check to see if it stayed the same after Midnight, right?


As for the 'Dollar Tree', the manager of my local one (we're on first name terms, now) sigh glumly when asked about two things at Halloween. The first are those little black crows. The second? Plastic pumpkins What, he wants to know, do we do with them? Apparently it's a struggle to keep them in stock. Keep up the good work!

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Agen Judi Bola said...

Very amazing, did you edit the picture in photoshop?