How to decorate with Dollar Tree pumpkins

 Searching how to decorate with dollar tree pumpkins?  We have an easy way to decorate with Dollar Tree pumpkins to share with you today.    

Wanting to know how to decorate a mantel for fall with pumpkins?  It is quite easy to decorate with pumpkins in your home for fall and Halloween.  Dollar Tree offers frugal options to decorate your home for fall. 

Fall... oh how I have missed you my friend.  I love your cooler temperatures, and when the leaves turn to those vibrant colors of red, yellow, orange, and even brown, I do not mind you at all brown... how the mornings are brisk, and I need to grab my sweatshirt before I head outdoors.  I love how the grass no longer needs mowed so I can spend some time outdoors enjoying those cooler temps.  I pretty much love everything about you fall... so happy to see your shining face again.

Can you tell I love fall?  October is the month of months for us around here at VSG for fall, but September is pretty nice too.  We love all of the fall months, so hard to pick just one.  

We have always blocked off time from our work schedules for us to enjoy the cooler weather during the fall months.  We typically attend a yearly barn sale, go on vacation, take day trips since a certain Bentley has been added to our family.  We just cannot leave him for a week with someone else, and he is so misbehaved, we could never take him on a proper vacation with us.  Darn it!  Staycations have become a norm for us, and I have to say I am not hating it.  

I can tell you I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal.  Do you know many years ago my sister and I went on a vacation where it was very unplanned?  When I say unplanned, you planners out there will cringe when you hear of our foolishness.  My husband would say chaos, he likes to plan, follow the plan, and then say plan is now checked off while brushing his hands like this is all complete!  See how we fit so nicely together?  Planner and unplanner in holy matrimony.  

When my sister and I went on vacation, we would wake in the morning, explore options on the internet, book a hotel room that morning for the same evening, drive to our destination, explore that area, only to wake up the next morning and do it all over again.  It was so much fun, we had no idea from day to day where we would end up!  Let me tell you, we discovered several states on that fall vacation.    

Can I tell you a secret?  I am not exactly sure my 40's self would agree so much with my early 30's self that taking the chance hotels will be available for the evening we would need it, and everything would go so accordingly to the unplan would work out so perfectly again.  It was a lot of fun, but I guess I am a grown up now.  Who wants to do that in life?  I would tell you that I get this Peter Pan syndrome from a family member, but then that would not be taking responsibility for myself, and we all know we need to do that in life, right?

Speaking of fall, remember when I shared I had been busy creating fall decor for our home?  Well, today I am sharing our lovely teal pumpkins that I made for our mantel.  I will let you tell me if you think they still look like dollar store pumpkins when we are finished.  

I began with a plain, old, just your average styrofoam pumpkins, and thought hm.. what can I do with this set of matching pumpkins?  I decided I would paint them the teal color I am so fond of right now.  I love how it looks in our living room with our existing décor so I have been picking up accent pieces and scattering them throughout our living room for a touch of color.

  

I began with the stems of our pumpkins, and knew a basic paint was not in the cards.  Who wants to be average?  I decided on my Spanish Copper Rub n Buff from my stash to paint the stems with.  I really liked the look.  It has an almost metallic look to them, what fun.  

Then I decided of course, our pumpkins would be the teal we have been sprinkling all over.  Once I had both pumpkins painted teal, I thought oh, okay, now what?  I settled on anther coat of paint thinking this would help in covering the look of styrofoam.  And afterward, I thought they still looked like painted styrofoam pumpkins, not a shining moment here at VSG.  Disappointment abounds.... 

Then, I had a brainy act moment, and remembered I have been seeing folks adding baking soda to their paint.  For my third and final coat, I added the baking soda to the paint which seemed to give it a smoother look over the styrofoam.  I decided I really liked the way my pumpkins looked, and away I went painting the other pumpkin with the baking soda mixture I created for our third coat of teal paint. 

Just a wee bit of texture to our pumpkins, and for the most part, our styrofoam was smoothed out by the baking soda.  This was a first attempt for me adding baking soda to paint.  I kind of like it, and think I will try this again soon on another project.   So after I decided I liked our texture of our pumpkins along with the teal color, I concluded our pumpkins looked a bit bare just sitting there all lonely and really needed a bit of something.

I thought leaves were in order for this teal loving duo, and it just so happened that my mother gave me a cascading vine she longer wanted last week.  The plastic was beginning to fall apart from being exposed to the sun for so many summers, but she thought I could do something with the leaves on the vines.

At first I thought what on earth am I going to do with these leaves?  Then my next thought was, why does everyone give me their castoffs?  I always hear, I know you will be able to do something with this... which for the most part is true, but some days I am like what?  How do I know what to do with xyz?  

I left the vine and leaves in my car since I was not exactly sure what I would plan for them.  When the pumpkins needed some leaves, I knew just where to find those leaves so I guess I found another project where I was able to use someone else's junk.  One man's junk is another man's treasure.  Yep, yes siree it is, and then I was only too happy to have those leaves on hand too!  

I decided to add my Spanish Copper Rub N Buff to the leaves so they matched my stem, and hot glued two leaves together and then hot glued them to my pumpkins.  I added our lovely Dollar Tree pumpkins to our fall mantel and said not bad for $2.00.  I had everything else on hand, so for a couple of bucks, I was over the moon with my teal pumpkins.  

I added more pumpkins to our mantel haphazardly and said perfectly imperfect, just the way I like things around here.  Mr. VS thought the pumpkins appeared to be made of velvet which I thought, even better... because velvet is one of my favorite fabrics.    

If you look at our mantel throughout the seasons, you will see certain items never leave their place on our mantel.  I like having those few key pieces that set the tone for our decor in our living room.  This teal and variations of it have quickly become a favorite of mine.  

I made a pumpkin garland for our mantel as well, you can see it in the background of our photos.  Can I tell you how awesome it is to find things at the dollar store and give them makeovers and see what I can come up with?  It is like another game for me, see what I can make from dollar store items.  I am so loving this new game I have created for myself!  It goes perfectly with the game I like of how little money I can spend on decorating our home!  

Hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.  I will be busy finishing up more fall decor items for our home.  Below you can see how the entire mantel came together for this fall.  

We have provided links to similar items we have used below if you cannot locate the pumpkins at Dollar Tree.  

This teal craft paint. 

This Spanish copper Rub-N-Buff.

This set of sponge brushes. 

These styrofoam pumpkins.