Boho Pumpkin Decorating DIY

If you’re anything like me, the vibrant, saturated colors of Halloween don’t really go with your indoor decor. I was searching for a fun pumpkin decorating DIY, but nothing I found online matched my subdued bohemian vibe.

So I decided to create my own pumpkin DIY, by recreating one of my favorite home decor accessories, the leather pouf ottoman!

I have included the step-by-step instructions below and a few tips to make your line painting perfect!

What You’ll Need:

• Pumpkin(s)
• Brown acrylic paint (this is the best color I found, and I tried several of them!)
• Rose Gold/Copper acrylic paint
• White acrylic paint
• Black acrylic paint
• Fine point paintbrush
• Large flat paintbrush
• Small flat paintbrush

Keep reading for the complete steps on how to make a bohemian pumpkin DIY.

Step 1

Paint your pumpkin with 2-3 coats of acrylic paint. I chose this reddish brown to imitate the color of a distressed leather pouf, but feel free to also choose white, grey, or any other color you like.

If you also want to paint the stem a different color (recommended), paint the stem first. Trust me on this. The stem is tricky to get into all the right spots and the paint will get all over the base of the pumpkin. If you do this step first you’ll be able to cover the spots with the paint of the pumpkin. I ended up changing both colors of my stems as shown in these pictures. I ended up choosing a coppery rose gold that you can see in the final shots.

Step 2

Depending upon the size of the pumpkin, place a small dot about 3″ from the stem. Do this in every “section’s” crease in the pumpkin, all the way around to create a dotted circle. This will allow you to know exactly where to start the base of your lines that you will paint in the next step.

Step 3

Start at one of the small dots and paint a line down the crease of the pumpkin, stopping when you have about a 3″ line. Then, move to the next small dot and do the same thing.

Step 4

Once you have 2 lines painted, you want to connect them by painting angled lines so they meet in the middle.

Step 5

At each of the points where the 2 lines meet, paint an additional line going down the bottom section of the pumpkin. You may not be able to reach all the way underneath (especially if it’s a large/heavy pumpkin), but you can touch those up afterwards, when the rest of the paint is dry. (Or if you’re lazy like I am, just leave them unfinished…ain’t no one gonna flip your pumpkin upside down to make sure you finished those lines, girl!)

Step 6

Start again from the top and paint the next 3″ line in. Now, in order to make all the section’s points end at the same spot, paint another small dot parallel to the point where the first 2 points met. Now you’ll know exactly where the next 2 lines will have to meet.

Step 7

Repeat this process around the entire circumference of the pumpkin. If you’re using white paint like I am you may need to go over the lines 2-3 times to make them opaque. But, it does not matter if your lines are messy or uneven, we will clean them up in the next step! Seriously, my lines were all over the place after my first round. The good thing about this kind of paint is that mistakes are easy to fix!

Step 8

Take a small flat brush and dip it in the same color as the pumpkin color (not the color you’ve been painting the lines with). By laying the small brush flat to the surface of the pumpkin, clean up any messy or uneven lines that you’ve made. The flat brush makes it easier to draw a straight line and clean up edges.

Step 9

To paint the decorations around the top, place a small dot in the middle of 2 sections, level with the top of the lines.

Step 10

Using the dot you painted as the bottom point, paint the rest of the diamond shape.

Step 11

To finish the decoration, paint one dot above the diamond and one dot below the diamond. You have the option to connect the diamonds with a line (as shown in the black pumpkin).

And that’s it!

You’ve created a beautiful bohemian pumpkin decoration. The good thing about this pumpkin decor is that it could be used for Halloween as well as Thanksgiving! Although, I wouldn’t recommend using the same pumpkin for both…pumpkins can rot out pretty quickly. Yuck.

Also, another word of caution, make sure no one tries to actually sit on your pumpkin. It might look so much like the real thing they may mistake it as the leather pouf we’re trying to emulate. I guess they’ll find out soon enough when that pumpkin stem lands where it shouldn’t…oops!

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Thanks for reading!

Xx