My Halloween specialty is making a dinner with appropriately gross food and my kids love it.  We’ve had meatloaf rats, bloody nose soup, eyeballs and a jello brain amongst many other things.  Last year we had a Harry Potter Murder Mystery Dinner that was a blast.  I just love that kind of stuff!

Even though things can get pretty gruesome around my place during Halloween, I also like to decorate with a little sparkle!  Enter these Glitter Pumpkin Candy Holders.  Made out of craft pumpkins, these are super easy to make but will really stand out in your home.  I get a lot of compliments on mine!

But enough yakkin’, let’s get crafting!

Here are the items that you will need for this project:

• Craft Pumpkins
• Martha Stewart Fine Glitter 1.48 oz bottle.  I used gold, turquoise and a light green for the stem. I get mine at Michael’s. Picture below
• Box cutter, picture below
• Elmer’s All-Purpose Glue
• Paintbrush.  I used a foam one.

Determine what size of pumpkin you are going to glitter and then I just eyeballed it and with a pen, drew a mouth on my pumpkins.  Make sure it will be large enough to fit a hand into and don’t go too low so that there won’t be any room to hold candy.  You could also draw eyes and a nose to cut out but I wasn’t interested in doing that to these two this time.

With your box cutter, cut on your mouth lines.  If it is not exact or if there is some line still showing on the pumpkin, don’t worry because it will be covered with the glitter!

Remove the cut-out part and then clean up any rough edges.   Now for this next part, make sure you have your pumpkins on some newspaper or a trash bag because there is going to be lots of overspill of your glitter.  You will want to be able to keep the spilled glitter to put back into your bottle.

With your paintbrush, apply the glue to your pumpkin.  I usually work in smaller sections. Make sure that you have good coverage but not too thick or else after you apply the glitter, the glue will start to slide and cause a glob.   Don’t ask me how I know that.

Sprinkle your glitter over the glue.

Tap your pumpkin to remove any excess glue.  I glittered most of the top part of my pumpkins first, let them dry overnight and then I glittered the bottoms.   I also glittered the exposed edges where I cut the pumpkin and don’t forget to glitter the stem!  Same procedure.

I also glittered one pumpkin at a time so that I wasn’t mixing up the two colors of glitter.  You can just pour the excess glitter back into your jar to use again.  You will be surprised at how little glitter it actually takes to make these beautiful pumpkins!

If you see any areas that didn’t glitter, don’t worry.  Just apply some more glue, sprinkle your  glitter, then tap and that should take care of that.

When your pumpkin is completely dry, take a damp cloth and wipe out the inside of your pumpkin of any glitter residue.

Fill with your favorite candy and you are ready to go.

Happy Halloween everyone!

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Check out these other great Halloween ideas!

Bloody Shirley Temples

Chocolate Chip Spider Cookies

Halloween Hot Chocolate

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There’s just something about the change in the weather to cooler temperatures and the sound of leaves crunching underfoot that makes me take a step back and look at the world around me with fresh eyes.  I think that’s why I love this quote from F. Scott Fitzergerald’s The Great Gatsby so much:

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

I thought it was the perfect sentiment to share alongside a fall vignette.  So….we turned it into a printable that is perfectly sized for an 8×10 frame!

I had fun finding some touches of fall to put around my framed quote.  I shopped my house and one of my favorite grocery stores to put together this little Autumn display.

The vase is a favorite find from Target last spring.  I love the little yellow sculpted flower–it reminds me of a chrysanthemum or dahlia!  Since the printable is so literary, I had to have some books nearby.  I pick up vintage Reader’s Digest Condensed books whenever I find them at thrift shops, because the covers have such pretty colors and patterns.  I drew a pile of pumpkins on my chalkboard.  Since fall foliage isn’t very spectacular in my area, I keep a few of these fabric leaves on hand to use in my Fall decor every year.  The flowers and gourds came from Trader Joe’s.  (In case you haven’t heard, they have incredible prices on fresh flowers!)

See those teeny-tiny pumpkins?  They actually come on branches, and they are known as pumpkin trees.  They are a type of ornamental eggplant.  Who knew?  I think they are adorable, and so fun to decorate with throughout the harvest season.  I think they are sold by many florists, but you can definitely find them at Trader Joe’s, this time of year.

Ready to add a touch of fall to your home?  Click the button below to download the FREE Fall printable pictured above.

 This awesome post has been shared with: Skip to My Lou and Home Stories A to Z

The post Life Begins in the Fall – FREE Printable! appeared first on TGIF - This Grandma is Fun.

Today we have three more projects that you can make for any upcoming fall party that you might be having including one of the projects that we made…Paper Pumpkins! But make sure you read to the end of the post to see the other two projects. You won’t want to miss them!

Items needed for this project are: 7 different colors of 12×12 two-sided (really important!) scrapbook paper, making sure one color is green for the leaves at the top, kraft paper or a brown paper bag, scissors, glue gun and glue. That’s it!

With whatever “round” items that you have at home, cut three sizes of circles from your scrapbook paper. I made mine around 7″, 6″ and 5″.

Cut out your circles. Make sure you cut inside the pencil line so they won’t show on your pumpkin!

Then take a ruler and draw a line at the bottom of your circles and cut a little bit off of the bottom of the circle. This will help your pumpkins to “stand”. Make sure that if your paper has a linear design on it that you cut the bottoms to look good with your pattern.

Fold your circles in half and then with a glue gun, glue the folded backs together to create your pumpkin.

To finish, cut some round circles to glue as leaves on the top. I then took some brown kraft paper and got it wet, twisted it to look like a vine and let it dry. Also cut two thin strips of your leftover scrap paper and curl with some scissors. Glue your leaves on, then your two thin curled strips and then top with your dried paper vine. Voila! Are these cute or what?

A big shout out to It Happened Like This for the great inspiration for this project!

And now are you ready for the next two projects? Click on the links to be taken to the tutorial and while you’re there check out the darling blogs of

One Charming Party and Lulu the Baker!

DIY Market Banner by One Charming Party

Free Printable Pie Sign AND Peach Pie Recipe by Lulu the Baker

Wow! What great autumn projects. I bet you can hardly wait for tomorrow to see what’s next. And I don’t blame you. They are going to be great!!

See you tomorrow!

This post is being shared with: Skip to my Lou and Making the World Cuter

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