How to Make A Wooden Pumpkin

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Creating wooden pumpkins for fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving is easy, fun, and super budget-friendly.

I used scrap wood from building our garden trellis, paint on hand, and sticks off a tree in my yard. 

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The adorable gather sign in the photo above I made in an earlier post.

Wooden Pumpkin Tutorial 

This craft project is so easy you can invite the kids to join in the fun. 

If you don’t have time to create some gorgeous pumpkins right now you can save this pin on your Pinterest fall craft board. 

What Supplies Do I Need to Make a Wooden Pumpkin?

The first place to look for “free” wood is in your wood scrap pile. You can use 2×4 or 4×4 for this project. Your local hardware store also has a scrap pile, so be sure to ask them about it. 

🎃 For your convenience, I have gathered my favorite fall crafting must-haves in my Amazon store.

Wood

To create my pumpkins, I used 4×4; however, you could use a 2×4 as well. The heights I liked the best are 3″, 6″ and 9″. You can cut your piece of wood to your desired height. 

The pumpkins in the trio look so pretty for your dining room or mantle for fall. If your woodcuts have any rough spots, use sandpaper to smooth your wood.

These whimsical pumpkins have a non-traditional pumpkin shape that will be a great addition to your fall decor. You do not need to use high-quality wood for this DIY craft project, so use whatever you have on hand. 

Paint

My favorite craft paint is chalk paint! I always it on hand since it requires no prep before painting (you can read more about it in this earlier post). However, you can use any craft paint or spray paint to paint your wooden pumpkins. You can find chalk paint at most craft stores.

Stems

For the pumpkin’s I used sticks I cut from a tree. However, you can make a stem from airdrying clay, use cinnamon sticks, or purchase some. 

Leaves

I made a pattern to make some of my leaves (leaf pattern) and cut them out of old book pages. However, you can use burlap, craft paper, or fabric for your DIY leaves. For a few of my pumpkins, I used silk leaves. 

Raffia and Ribbon

I added a ribbon, lace, or raffia to add a little fun to my finished pumpkins. However, you could use a cord, twine, rope, yarn, etc., for your bow. Also, you could add bling if you like or sand off some of the paint and them more rustic. 

Glue and Scissors

You will need glue to attach the stem to the pumpkin. I choose hot glue since it dries instantly, so I could quickly finish decorating my pumpkins. However, other types of glue will work, such as wood glue, craft glue, or school glue. Also, I used “paper” scissors for cutting the leaves and my “ribbon” scissors to cut everything else. 

How Do I Make a Wooden Pumpkin?

This is one of the easiest and most inexpensive crafts I have ever made. You are ready to begin as soon as you decided what paint, stem, leaves, and bow you will be using.

1. Sanding and Painting the Wood

I like to give my unfinished wooden pieces a quick sanding before painting. 

It is fun to make your pumpkins in non-traditional colors, and you could add polka dots, stripes for a unique look.

2. Cut Out Pumpkins Leaves

When making these DIY wood pumpkins, I wanted to make a neutral tiro; therefore, the orange, yellow and green silk leaves would not work. I had to make the leaves from something I had on hand that was in the same colorway.

For this reason, I made some of my leaves using my leaf pattern and the book pages.

3. Pumpkin Stems

Choosing a stem for my pumpkins was as easy as stepping out of the backdoor. I decided to use stems from a tree since it gave my pumpkins a fun rustic wood style for the stem. Choosing a purchased or handmade stem are also a great choice. 

4. Assembling the Wooden Pumpkin

The best part of the project is assembling the pumpkin since you can get creative and make your own unique pumpkins.

Leaves

Attaching the leaves coupled with the DIY tendril (vine) adds a “real” element to your wooden pumpkins. There are many choices for DIY leaves, such as book pages, burlap, craft paper, fabric, ribbon, etc. on the other hand, if you would rather use purchased leaves, there is a wide variety of them to choose from well. You can use this downloadable leaf pattern for your DIY leaves.

 

Apply a generous dot of hot glue to the center of the top of your painted wood pumpkins and attach your stem. 

Next, attach your leaves. Note: Before I attach paper leaves, I like to fold them to make creases where the vines would be in a real leaf. 

Raffia, Lace, Twine, Rope, or Ribbon

 I chose the tendril or curly vine to coordinate with the other elements I used for each trio of pumpkins. Such as I used raffia for the white, for the orange ones, I used raffia and lace, and the teal pumpkins got a buffalo check ribbon. 

I found that adding the wide ribbon first was the easiest method to add them.  Then I nestled a few leaves under the ribbon.

Finished Wooden Pumpkins

I displayed the white pumpkins with some book page decoupaged pumpkins. 

You might also like these scrap wood projects:

These simple scrap wood trees can be displayed all year round. They were made with the leftover wood from my DIY blanket ladder.

One of my all-time favorite DIY scrap wood projects is my lanterns.

Pallet Pumpkin cutouts is another fun and whimsical wooden pumpkin craft.  They are the perfect pumpkin decor for your front porch.

You can find a ton of inspiration with these 20 plus DIY pumpkins in this post by Olivia Ohern.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by today. I hope you found some easy and quick fall inspiration.

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See you soon,

Kippi