Wooden Pallet Pumpkins

It’s fall!  At least here in Utah the last week or so it really feels like the weather has suddenly decided summer is over.  There is that unique crispness in the air and the days just aren’t quite as warm as they were.  The leaves are even changing colors up on the mountains.  It happened suddenly, like someone flipped a switch.  And what’s funny is that it coincided almost to the day with the day the kids started school just over a week ago.

I thought I would be sad to see summer go, and I am a bit, but I’m also excited for the change of seasons.  I love fall and all that goes along with it – sweaters and jeans, brightly colored trees, apples and pumpkin flavored everything… 😉  I’ve been seeing fall decor and pumpkin recipes popping up online.  And I have to admit I gave into the urge for pumpkin and made pumpkin muffins for the kids lunchboxes this week.  So it’s no surprise that I have pumpkins on the brain and wanted to share the pallet pumpkins my husband and I made a couple of years ago.  (I was going to say last fall, but dates on the photos say 2013.  Wow time goes by so quickly doesn’t it?)
Oh and before I forget – more details on that great Thankful Grateful Blessed sign can be found HERE.

I thought about doing tutorial photos as I went but when it comes right down to it, the pallet pumpkins aren’t that hard to put together.  Acquire yourself a pallet and get the husband and his Sawsall to rip it apart.  Line all the boards up and sketch in a pumpkin shape.  Don’t worry about it being perfect – that’s not the point of a pallet project, right?
Cut everything out with a jigsaw.  Give the rough edges a quick sanding.  Then turn it upside-down and lay it all out so you can add a couple of strips of wood to the back and screw all the pieces to that.

Making it stand up was a bit of a dilemma as mine were pretty big and attaching them to a base didn’t seem like the right choice.  In the end, Sam just took a hinge and added another piece of wood to the back like the stand on a picture frame.

The pumpkin looked good as it was, but I am a sucker for darker wood so I stained mine.  I knew the old dry wood would soak up a lot of stain, so I used a can that I had determined was too dark for my countdown blocks and did plan to use for any other projects.

Turns out it was a bit too dark for the pumpkins too and a lot of the character of the wood got lost.  So I dry brushed on some streaks of orange paint and we were back in business.

Much better.

And there you have it! A semi-quick, mostly free, and totally adorable addition to the front porch.  The best part is that when I switch out the Halloween décor, these babies will still look great for Thanksgiving.

As always – if you use this tutorial or even are just inspired by it and come up with your own spin I would love to see it!  Please feel free to share comments and photos.

Happy September and Happy Fall!

Want more great fall decor ideas?  Check out my easy and inexpensive wooden 2×4 Pumpkin Tutorial.

Featured on:  Merry Monday

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