Don’t you just love fall? My daughter was shouting, “Happy Autumn” as she threw the leaves in the air and I found it so adorable! You know what I also love? Decorating for fall! However when I put out my fall decor, something was definitely missing. I just didn’t know what was wrong with my decor. After a few days of just staring at my display, I realized it was my pumpkin! The pumpkin I had on display did NOT match the farmhouse chic look I was going for. Don’t get me wrong, the pumpkin I had was classy and all, but it just looked off. I then tried to wrack my brain, thinking, “What do I need instead?” Buffalo check. Yes! I want buffalo check pumpkins! So, I went and bought 2 cream colored fake pumpkins- a big one and a small one and went to work!
The first night, I painted my pumpkins with snow white acrylic paint. It ended up being two coats. It might take more coats for you, considering the original color of the pumpkin. I can’t remember who told me this, but an awesome tip is to put thumb tacks at the bottom to create stilts. That way, you can paint the whole pumpkin and not worry about the paint sticking to the wax paper. Oh yeah, make sure you have some kind of paper underneath!
Now I don’t have a picture of measuring, but the next night, after the paint had all dried, I grabbed my tailor’s tape measure and taped it around the stem of my pumpkin. I wanted 10 stripes, so I did the math and determined each line needed to be about 1 1/2 centimeters apart from each other. Now, this was for the big pumpkin. The little pumpkin had different measurements. Just measure your own pumpkin and divide the circumference by 10. Make notches around the stem.
From there, I drew a dot at the very center of the bottom of my pumpkin. I then taped the tailor’s tape measure to the stem and to the dot at the bottom and used that as my guide to draw straight lights down the pumpkin. As I was drawing my ten lines, I decided 5 horizontal stripes would look good (I was right!) so I would make notches along the line to indicate a new line. Now, in the end, those horizontal stripes are not the same size. The stripe that is closest to the stem is much smaller, but I liked the way it looked. Again, it all depends on the size of your pumpkin, but try and draw 6 horizontal lines along your pumpkin as evenly spaced as possible (this measuring process took A LOT longer than I thought).
I’m terrible at remembering patterns when I’m in a groove, so after drawing the lines, I wrote B for Black and G for Gray in the appropriate squares. Now, I know the check is obviously only black and white, but the gray is the illusion of the black and white combined. So the pattern goes like this: Gray, White, Gray, White, etc. Then the next row goes like this: Black, Gray, Black Gray, etc. Never have the Gray blocks touch each other.
I painted gray first, as that color is used more than the black. When I was finished, it looked like a checker board! And it’s okay if you didn’t stay in the lines perfectly. You can correct all that in the end.
The next day I painted the black squares (the reason why it took me so many days is because I was doing this while the kids slept. Haha!). This is where you really have to be careful about painting your squares. After the black had dried, I went through and fixed all the places where I accidentally painted into the other squares. Don’t forget to paint your stem black! I had considered adding a glaze, but I actually really liked this matte look! It’s up to you!
I originally had my pumpkins in a cute display on my counter top. You can buy wooden coasters, paint, and modge podge your coaster like this one!
However, as my birthday is in the fall, I knew this display wasn’t going to last long. I got myself a tiered tray for my birthday and I LOVE it!
In the end, these pumpkins have looked good all fall long! I was skeptical at first, but they looked great with my Halloween decor this year! Click here if you want a free October 31 Printable to create a small sign for your tiered tray!
I’d love to hear from you if you decided to make some of these pumpkins of your own! How did they turn out? Aren’t they just the cutest? Happy Fall, Y’all!