From this

to this in a few short steps!

Of course, it’s a lot easier to do if you have a helper this cute

Supplies:
Glue gun and/or stick
Decorative paper or fabric
Ribbon
Cardboard (or a cardboard cake circle)
Scissors
Mason jar
Marker/Pen

Take a circular object (we used a dinner plate) and trace around it onto the paper or fabric

Using the same circle (duh!) trace onto the cardboard. If you are going to put something heavy on top, you might want to cut two pieces of cardboard or use one thick piece.

Let your toddler go to town with the glue stick, covering the wrong side of the decorative paper

Adhere to the cardboard circle

While you get ready to use the glue gun, let the toddler go bonkers with the ribbon. This is why I buy double. One to play with, one to use.

Apply a thin line of glue around the edge of the cardboard

More bonkers with the ribbon in the meantime

Press the ribbon down around

Mark as close to the center of the circle as you can

Center the ring of the mason jar and trace around it

Glue around the edge of the line

And let the toddler hold it down until dry. About three seconds, or the length of the three year old’s attention span

Screw the jar into the band and you’re done!

Now, if you’re going to put something heavy or unsteady on top of it (like cupcakes with greedy hands grabbing them off) you’ll want to put a weight of some sort in the jar just to help keep it anchored down. We might have learned this the hard way at the party!

Suppplies:

**I imagine you could also glue each strip of paper together instead of using brads, but I had brads and glue is too messy. But glue away my friend if it suits you.

These are brads, in case you’ve forgotten crafting 101.

I used a fancy hole puncher. You can also use a three hole punch or your finger.

Trace your leaf onto green paper. If you want to get all Martha, I’m sure you could use a real leaf if you wanted.

For those of you lazy BOW’s out there, here’s the leaf I used to trace.
Leaf Template

Cut your leaf out and go on and write the name. Do it now even though it seems bassackwards to do this first.

Punch a hole at the end of the leaf, set aside

Time to cut! Slice your paper into two inch strips (slicing paper sounds so much more cool than merely cutting it.) Okay, here’s the truth. All these measurements and crapp are just my suggestions. You are free to do whatever you want. You are free to even do nothing if that pleases you as well. Just be forewarned, if you don’t do what I say, your pumpkins won’t look like mine. And don’t come crying to me when they turn out different. I’ve already told you so.

Shortcut 101 – slice two pieces of paper together at once!

When you are done, you’ll have eight 2 x 11 strips and two scrap strips – throw those away. Recycle those.

Start punching! Put a hole at each end of the strip. Now, here’s where deviating from my instructions have the most life shattering impact. I punched my holes about an inch from the end of the strip and tried to land it roughly in the middle. Should you punch closer to the end of the paper, again, your pumpkin will look differently. Read all the way through for photos of possible variations.

When you are done, you’ll have a tidy stack of strips with two holes in each strip

Line up the leaf hole with the strip hole (boy that sounds dirty.)

Put the brad through, pretty side up.

The dirty underside. (Lord have mercy what is up with this color?)

For ease of reference, we’re going to use the face of a clock to tell you how to lay them out. Strips one and two get laid at positions twelve and six.

Then nine and three.

Then two and seven. (I can tell time, right?)

Then five and ten.

Then bring strips up to form a round shape, overlapping the holes. Insert the brad from the bottom to the top (much easier to hold that way)

Until all the strips are up. Don’t worry if they fall out of perfect alignment, that’s easily fixed.

Fold the brad closed, and presto – a pumpkin bottom!

Now turn the pumpkin over, and you are done! (If you want to be)

You can also add in a vine like thingie. Take a piece of floral wire and wrap it around and kind of under the brad.

Using a pen or pencil or get crafty and use your finger, wrap the wire around and around.

Remove the wrapping instrument – and curlicues!

Now my momma has a place to sit!

So remember what I said about punching the hole an inch from the end of the strip? I got lazy and decided to just use my three hole punch, which of course, doesn’t punch an inch from the end. It punches about a quarter of an inch from the end.

This is the result.

A pumpkin that does look different from the rest of them. It’s a little bit looser and bigger than the others. So if you like the way a tighter pumpkin looks but you only have a three hole punch, cut your strips to be about ten inches instead of eleven.

Pretty little pumpkins all in a row.

Variations on a theme:

They have yet to be tarted up.

Click here for the whole how-to album