I saw a foam pumpkin at Joann’s that was covered in felt and was so cute. I decided to give it a try….

I bought my pumpkins last year at Joanns after pumpkin season for 80% off. The pumpkin in this video is a normal size foam pumpkin. To cover it, first I used the scalpel under the stem and removed it and laid it where I wouldn’t lose it. I bought 1/2 yard dark orange felt from Joanns, and cut it to about 2 1/2″ wide by 12″ long strips–I counted the ribs and that’s how many strips I needed. I trimmed the sides of both ends so they were more narrow than the middle of the strip.   Next, I cut slits in the edges of each pumpkin rib with the scalpel…I didn’t cut all the way through, just needed to make a place to press the felt into…I used Fabri Fix Glue from Beacon that I also bought at Joanns, (couldn’t find a link for Joann’s though) link http://tinyurl.com/y7q45es7  and it worked well for holding the felt on the foam. After cutting slits with a disposable scalpel that I was sent from a viewer, link http://tinyurl.com/yag4eb7t, I took the long strip of felt and using a pokey tool, here’s a link to some at Amazon, http://tinyurl.com/ycgzemct   I shoved the side of the felt into the slits I’d created with the scalpel the length of the pumpkin (on both sides of each rib)…When I got to the top and bottom of the pumpkin, I cut off excess felt and made sure it would glue flat on both ends.. Then I continued to the next strip by doing the same process, and cutting off any excess felt that would not fit into the slots I had cut. On both ends, if cutting off the edges of the felt didn’t work, then I cut a “V” into the center of the end of the felt piece so it lays flat. I continued until the pumpkin was completely covered. I used a large circle die to cut the felt for the bottom of the pumpkin so it would make it flat and give a more professional appearance.

. I kept calling the glue Fabric Tack which is not the name of the glue I used. You’ll use almost a full bottle of glue for this project, so you should be prepared to use a lot.
After the pumpkin was covered with felt, I had to figure out how to get any glue off the felt that I had accidentally left..I took some rubbing alcohol on a rag and gently dabbed at the dried glue and it came off..I noticed that if I pressed too hard, I would basically melt the foam underneath, so needed to be extra careful.
To cover the stem, I used another piece of tan felt, and cut it so there was a thinner section on the top…I ended up cutting it so it looked like a bold “I”. I placed the center of the felt on the top of the stem, then folded the ends around the stem until they covered it. I trimmed the felt so there wasn’t any excess, and made sure there was enough felt to cover some of the bottom of the stem. I used hot glue to glue the felt on the bottom and not the foam, as I was pretty sure it would melt the glue. I put a toothpick in the top center of the pumpkin and inserted the stem with hot glue under it and held it in place until I was sure it was tightly adhered. I had some berries on a floral spike that I used alcohol inks to color the berries, then used Collage Pauge matte (sorry Rich spelled this wrong in the video) to seal the berries, and inserted them into the top of the pumpkin.  Before pushing in the floral spike, I used the scalpel to cut a slit in the pumpkin to make it simpler inserting the spike.   I used Adirondack Inks in Sunset Orange and Butterscotch with an alcohol ink paint brush link: http://tinyurl.com/y9s862rb to color the berries. I got alcohol ink on one of the leaves, so cut that leaf off with Tim Holtz scissors, and glued another leaf in its place. The dark berry is all sunset orange ink and the lighter berry is butterscotch.

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