For our new Thanksgiving collection with Bonjour Fete, I made some DIY paper stems and put them on a slew of real pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. I love how they turned out and based on feedback from the reel, a lot of you did too. I got some requests for a tutorial so I thought I’d share it all here. Anyone can make them and they’re so impactful. You can even reuse pumpkins for Halloween to transition them into Thanksgiving decor.
My favorite Thanksgiving decor are items you already have that only requires a little extra accoutrements, so these DIY paper stems on pumpkins fit the bill to a t. I love that you can make a whole lot of them or just one and they are just as impactful. I made about 15 for the table below, but only used 6 on the Thanksgiving table itself and the rest I’m planning on displaying throughout my house. It only requires a bit of paper, which you may already have in your home so no crazy materials.
DIY paper stems on pumpkins
Difficulty:
beginnerTime:
10 minutes for 1Materials
- navy cardstock
- paper covered wire
- navy crepe paper
- acrylic paint
- paintbrush
- glue gun
- Pumpkins with stems on them. The longer the better.
Instructions
Make the leaves
- I used the illustrations from the Bonjour Fete collection as the inspiration for the leaves so I cut them out of navy cardstock paper. I first made a template and then used it to cut out the rest of the leaves. Each one is about 4″ long.
- Next, I used some pale yellow paint to add in details of the leaves
- Next, I took some navy paint that matched the leaves and painted the stems of the pumpkins.
Assemble the leaves and wire
- Take your crepe paper and cut against the grain of the paper in 3/4″ widths. Stretch it out, then wrap it around the paper covered wire.
- Hot glue a leaf to the wire, bend it to your wish, then glue it onto the stem of the pumpkin.
- To combine two wires together, make two paper covered wires, then start with one, wrap the crepe around the first wire, then add in the second wire with the crepe paper and wrap it all the way down.
- To make the curlicue wire, use your finger to wrap the wire up or a thick paint brush.
- If the colors of your crepe paper and navy leaves don’t match, paint the crepe paper. This is optional, but I did it and loved the look!
I made a little video to show you how it all works, which you can see here.
Based on your feedback from this post, some of you were interested in making them for your Thanksgiving table. If you are, I’d love to see it! Tag us with #LarsGivesThanks so we can see it all!
You can shop our full Bonjour Fete collection here.