paper pumpkins

over the past couple of days ghosts, witches, a few pirates & lots of pumpkins have taken over the house. last year we had so much making these paper pumpkins, that we decided to do them again. you & your kiddos want to make a some too? grab some paper, a paper punch, some floral wire, & a few fake leaves and you'll be making pumpkins in no time. (click on the pictures on the right to enlarge them.)

1. start with a piece of paper. i prefer card stock, but really, any paper will do. & the size really isn't important. different sizes of paper will create different sized pumpkins, so have fun with it & be creative.
2. cut your paper into strips. i usually make the strips 1" wide, but again, be creative. experiment with different widths, or even a mixture. there is no right or wrong way to do this.
3. after you've cut your strips punch a hole in each end of your strip, resulting in two holes per strip, one at each end.
4. stack all the strips on top of each other, line up the holes, & thread a piece of floral wire (about 5" long) through all of the holes. make sure to kink or coil one of the ends of the floral wire to "anchor" it.
5. after you've threaded the floral wire through one set of the holes, fold the paper in a u-shape & thread the wire through the other set of stacked holes. make sense? when you've done it correctly the paper will make a tear drop shape.
6. now, kink or coil this end of the floral wire, once again "anchoring" it. how much space or wire you leave between the two ends of paper is up to you. again experiment with the length of wire you leave. the more wire, the taller the pumpkin will sit. just play with the shape.
7. using some excess floral wire attach a couple of leaves, fan out your pumpkin, & ta da! you are all finished.

this is a quick & easy project, & my kids love to help. they get a kick out of punching holes & helping "thread" the pumpkins. try different colors & paper textures... it's fun seeing what you can create.