"distressed" pumpkins

It feels like fall in Kansas City!  We already have our BOO sign that we made last month, and we decided that you can never have enough fall decor, so we tried our hand at making some Dollar Tree pumpkins into works of art at Lisa G's house!  For more detailed directions, click here. 

 We started with these Dollar Tree pumpkins that definitely look like they cost a buck.  Not too impressive! 

The first step is to spraypaint a bottom layer.  This is the color that will should show through in the crackles of the finished product.  After the spraypaint dries, you apply a layer of crackle medium (this is the step that messed us Rachel and me up).  Wait some more and then apply a top coat.  The crackle medium should start to do its magic and you should be left with pumpkins that look like this: 

 Aren't these great?!  These are Lisa G's finished pumpkins and I think they look awesome!  She had a different crackle coat that she put on and hers worked much better than ours.  Or maybe it was just user error on my part, but whatever the difference was, hers definitely look professional! 

These are mine, and while I'm bummed that while the orange ones don't look distressed, in person they are not bad at all! 

**Please note the glittery pumpkins.  This may be the highlight of the evening for me.  I discovered this awesome product!  Krylon Glitter Blast spraypaint is awesome!  The above sparkly pumpkin was created by a layer of regular brown spraypaint and then I used the bronze glitter spraypaint over that.  They look awesome!  And best of all, the glitter doesn't come off everywhere!  I foresee lots of fun projects with this product!

Here are some of the products we used, from left to right:

- acrylic paint

-  crackle medium. ** this is the one that Rachel and I used that didn't work how we envisioned!

-  spray paint-- a small bottle covered four pumpkins

- Glitter Blast

-  clear polyurethane

I might also add that this time around, we also went potluck style and each brought appetizers and/or desserts. 
Rachel brought a fantastic fiesta ranch dip.
Lisa G made pepperoni pizza crescent roll-ups that were amazing, and a fabulous raspberry habenero cream cheese dip.
Lisa S brought pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies and apples with toffee dip. 
All of the snacks were delicious and it was great to taste-test everything!  :)