Baby's First Painted Pumpkin

So Halloween was coming up and I wanted to make a great 1st pumpkin for Emma. 

I had the idea to do a pumpkin with her initials on it and her hands and foot prints.
I'm not a big fan of carving pumpkins, its too messy and not little kid friendly. So I decided to paint her pumpkin so she could help with it! I love painting pumpkins, we will be doing this every year from now on.

What you will need: 

Ribbon

Base color paint (Pink)

Writing color paint (White)

Paint Brushes

Glitter Paint

Pumpkin

You can choose whatever colors and ribbons you want to use! All the products I used were bought at t craft store (besides the pumpkin). 

I started by painting the pumpkin pink and letting it dry, then I repeated until it had about 3 coats of paint on it. Next, I painted the stem of the pumpkin. I used a silver glitter paint that I found at our local craft store, but any color will do. Then, I took a pencil and very lightly drew the outline of her initial, the letter "E". I painted over the pencil with the white paint and tried to make all the lines even. I had to put a few coats of the white so that the pink wouldn't show through. Then Emma got to help. I put her in her high chair and painted her foot with the white paint. Then, I pressed her foot onto the pumpkin. I didn't come out perfect, so I took the paint brush and went over it, and put more coats on it. Then, I painted her hand and did the same process. Any mistakes can be fixed with more pink paint to touch it up. Once all of that was done, I added some polka dots to the back and princess swirls in the top around the stem, again doing multiple coats. Then I tied the ribbon in a bow on the top (picked out to match the paint). 

It was a great first pumpkin! It's something that even though she was only 9 months old, she had a hand (and foot) in making. :) She kept trying to pick it up, but we left it on the table out of her reach. She loved getting picked up to look at! 

You could also do a fake plastic pumpkin as a keepsake of your babies 1st pumpkin. The real pumpkins are a lot cheaper, though. Good Luck! :)

Happy Halloween Everyone! :)

Please comment if you used this as an inspiration for your own child's pumpkin, or post a picture of the completed project! Thanks for visiting! :)