MAKE: Two easy (kid-friendly!) fall crafts for your home. 
I am terribly indecisive when I’m given lots of choices. Therefore, don’t take me to a pumpkin farm.
It takes determination and stamina but I will spend a ridiculous amount of time finding that perfect gourd. It’s my special gift, I know.
This one is too bumpy. This one has a weird spot. This one is too lopsided. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Want to know my new secret to quick decisiveness at the pumpkin patch? Bring a toddler!!
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that my daughter and I were recently at a pumpkin farm. Wrangling a toddler amidst pumpkins, goats, mums and tractors is a feat on its own. Picking out pumpkins for our front porch with wishy-washy me? That was going to be, perhaps, the bigger challenge.
But, I decided very quickly that I needed to turn the gourd selection decisions over to the two-year-old. I have to say that it was weirdly freeing. My little bouncing blonde had a blast helping me pick out a bunch of white pumpkins. Together we practiced counting and selected five little munchkins and three big guys. And, at the end of it all, we both were pleased. I realized that these were just pumpkins and that my kid has good taste (for pumpkins?).
I was not sure how to arrange and decorate these pumpkins, but I knew I’d figure it out when we got home. After all of the spotted black and white crafts I made, I knew I had to continue that theme. Yes, my love affair with black vinyl (ahem, the crafty kind!) and circle punches has not stopped yet this fall.
To decorate our small porch, I turned an old copper planter upside down and piled all the pumpkins on top and around it. Some black vinyl and circle hole punches were the perfect way to create “eyes” for each white gourd.
A super easy, quick and cheap way to decorate pumpkins. I love that they feel a little spooky but in a toddler-ish, non-scary way.
So, continuing the “let’s enlist the toddler to help with more fall decorating decisions” theme, I handed Little C a paintbrush and a few pumpkin shaped wood cut outs. (We found ours at Target.)
Sticking with only two fall-themed colors helped keep the pumpkins looking cohesive. I took orange and apple green colored craft paint and watered them down. As my daughter painted, the thinned out paint created a watercolor effect on the wood.
The markings my toddler made with the two colors resulted in an organic painterly or even semi-ikat pattern. (Thanks to Holly for pointing that out!) Even if I tried, I’m not sure I’d get the same pattern. I liked it!
Once dry, I found some coordinating ribbon (in a trending plaid pattern) and hung the pumpkins on the shaker hooks in our foyer.
I love that the hanging cut-outs are low enough that Little C can touch and play with them. Plus, they look cute and are kid-safe. A win-win!
How have you been celebrating the fall with your family? Did you pick out pumpkins? What have you been making? I’d love to hear about more kid-friendly crafts and décor projects!
