More Stenciled Pumpkins for Fall

Inspired by the stenciled and painted pumpkins I found last year, I decided to paint some of my own. I’d never even seen a white pumpkin before I found those pictures, and loved the look, so I decided to try bhg.com’s doily stenciling technique on an artificial white pumpkin.

With a few key exceptions, I followed these instructions from bhg.com, and from their video:

If you want to try this yourself, watch the video above then read my tips below before getting started.

Project Tips

1. Take that doily outside to spray it to avoid the spray adhesive fumes.
2. Use a bigger brush. The caption to the video says “It takes some patience but the results are so worth it.” The reason it requires so much patience is that she’s using a teeny tiny brush and “dabbing” it on. I only used the 1/4″ brush on the tiniest areas of the doily on the larger pumpkin. For the rest, I used a 1/2″ brush, offloaded, and swirled, and was done in minutes.
3. OFFLOAD, OFFLOAD OFFLOAD! I can’t say this enough times and it seems to be a step that is so often omitted in mainstream media stenciling instructions. You’re not wasting paint when you do this, you’re working it into the brush and ensuring that run unders, gloops and globs won’t occur.
4. Swirl instead of Stipple (see tip #2, above). If you employ a dry brush stenciling technique (see tip #3) and have stencil adhesive to hold down your stencil, there’s no reason you can’t apply a little pressure and swirl the paint over the doily in a circular motion. That way you’re applying paint to multiple openings simultaneously, greatly speeding up the process. A properly loaded brush will give you much more control over the paint application.

Supplies and Sources

• Paper Lace Doilies – I picked some up at Michael’s. The doilies pictured right are available online, and match the pattern shown on the bhg.com pumpkin.
• Pumpkins – I used white artificial pumpkins from my local Michaels store.
• Repositionable Spray Adhesive, such as Krylon Easy-Tack
• Stencil Brushes, 1/2″ and 1/4″
• Acrylic Craft Paint – Plaid FolkArt Metallic in Antique Copper

How-To Instructions

If you’ve watched the video and read my tips, above, then you really don’t need a step-by-step, but these gallery pictures cover the basics of what I did. Click on any image for a larger view and to see my comments*.