Sondra Lyn at Home

Decorating, styling and living a life you will love.

By Sondra Lyn

How to Make a Burlap Pumpkin

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 How to Make a Burlap Pumpkin - -Sondra Lyn at Home

In case I haven’t told you yet, I LOVE pumpkins! All colors, real ones, fake ones, paper ones, fabric ones… well, you get the picture!

I was thinking the other day that I would like to create a pumpkin craft, and decided to make a burlap pumpkin.

In planning the project, it dawned on me that it would be great if I could think of a stuffing that was readily available, perhaps recyclable, and cheap! Looking all over the house, I opened the pantry door, and what did I see? This…

plastic bags-wtrmk

Plastic grocery bags! Oh, my goodness. Eureka!!  I haven’t switched to a fabric shopping bag yet, so we still get them… and while I try to recycle them, you can see my little bag holder is overflowing! It’s exactly what I was looking for.

So, the supplies you will need are:

  • 1 yard burlap
  • twine
  • hot glue gun
  • grocery bags… lots of them!
  • stones or beans
  • embellishments (ribbon, leaves, berries, etc.)

Square up your yard of burlap (it will probably be wider that 36″). Find the center of the piece of burlap using the HINT at the end of the post. Round the corners, creating a 36″ diameter circle. Cut 4 lengths of twine at 48″ each. Lay them out symmetrically on the back side of the burlap. From a scrap, cut out a small 2″ circle or square of burlap. Where the twine joins in the center, hot glue the small piece to secure all the lengths of twine. *Make sure you have something underneath the burlap because the glue will go right through to the surface beneath!! This will be the bottom of your pumpkin.

burlap-pumpkin8-wtrmk

In order to provide weight and keep your pumpkin upright, you want to fill a zip-lock bag with rocks or pinto beans, or something like that. I just happened to have a bag of river rock on hand!

burlap-pumpkin4-wtrmk

Assemble the stuffing: I chose to double bag, and use the natural color bags for the outside so if you get a glimpse of the bag through the burlap it won’t be white (I also turned the bag inside out, so the store logo wouldn’t be so dark). Place your bag of rocks, etc. in first and then just stuff it full of the plastic bags!! Keep stuffing until it’s stuffed pretty tight. Tie the bags at the top.

burlap-pumpkin7-wtrmk

Flip your burlap circle so that the twine is on the underside. Place filled bag on top of your burlap circle. Pull up on all sides, gathering up all the ends until the burlap circle is completely cinched up. Then, from underneath, keeping the twine lined up the way you laid it out, bring each piece of twine up on opposite sides and tie off tightly, creating the ribs of the pumpkin. Take another length of twine and tie around tightly. I managed to do this by myself, but if you want it cinched really tight, you can have someone hold while you tie, or vice versa.

burlap-pumpkin9-wtrmk

After tying off, you will have several long pieces of twine at the top. Scrunch the burlap up and wrap the twine around to make the stem! (Hot glue the twine as you wrap to make the stem).

burlap-pumpkin-collage1

Now, just add any embellishments that you might have on hand! I already had the ribbon and the berries stem. I purchased a pack of 10 leaves earlier at the dollar store… so that leaf cost a whole dime! All I had to buy for this project was 1 yard of burlap for 3.99/yd!! This project came in at under 5 bucks!

Tell me what you think… is she a beauty or what?

How to Make a burlap-pumpkin- Sondra Lyn at Home

Do you like to work with burlap? What are some of your favorite fall projects?? I hope you’ll try your own burlap pumpkin!

Blessings!

at home Sondra Lyn Watermark

** Here’s the HINT:**

burlap pumpkin fabric-center-wtrmk

HINT: To find the center of any piece of fabric, fold in half, then half again.
The corner of all the folds is the center!

This post was featured here:
All Things with Purpose30 Gorgeous Fall Decor IdeasThe Blissful Bee

Practically Functional Featured

 

 

 

Linking up to:

Home Stories A to Z, SNAP

The Lettered Cottage

 

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Comments

    • Thanks so much, Jenna! It was SO easy and ‘thrifty’ (it was hard not to use the word ‘cheap’)! Thanks for reading and for leaving a comment!!

      Reply

  4. This is a great idea! I am usually not a big fan of burlap (shhh!), but your pumpkin is so elegant looking I need to have one! I pinned it and I’m following you on FB now so I can see more of your crafty ideas! 🙂

    Reply

    • Thank you, Kim! I’m actually not a big fan of it either… while I love its texture, the thing I don’t like is that it sheds. Not a fan of anything that creates more dust in my house than I already have! 😉 Thanks for following… I’ll return the favor, if I’m not already following you! I am just trying to grow- still a ‘baby’ blog.

      Reply

    • Thank YOU, Jessi! You probably saw that my blog is still a baby… I really appreciate the sharing ops! Come visit any time!!

      Reply

    • Thanks, Lauren! I wanted to use the burlap from Haven… but it was actually too thick! I made a fairly large pumpkin and there was just too much bulk to twist into the stem! So I had to buy some that was a little lighter weight. I LOVE your blog!!

      Reply

  11. I have seen a lot of burlap pumpkin tutorials and this one is the easiest and best looking. I love it! It has a different look which is so appealing! Visiting from Marvelous Mondays and following you! Pinned!

    Reply

    • Thanks a million, AnnMarie!! You really can’t mess this one up! Just keep working with it till it looks good… Thanks for the Pin!

      Reply

    • Thank you, Kristi! I’m still in the growing stage… so your support is greatly appreciated!! And I LOVE your blog name: shouldn’t we ALL be?? 😉 I’ll be sure to like your FB page!

      Reply

  14. Sondra, you are so creative, really cute pumpkin!
    I didn’t know that you were at home with Larry now!
    Hope you “2” enjoy retirement together, looks like you have a neat thing going for you. You will do great I’m sure.

    Reply

    • Thank you, Agnes!! So glad you are reading! We are enjoying this time in our lives right now… especially our little grandson! Hope you are well!

      Reply

  15. Hi Sondra Lyn! I absolutely love pumpkins too and love your burlap pumpkin! Thank you so much for sharing and joining us at Best of the Weekend! Pinning! Hope you have a wonderful first week of autumn and that you can join us again this Friday. Happy Monday!

    Reply

    • Thank you soooo much!! Sorry for the delayed reply… I had been out of town (and out of internet access, too!). Hope you’ll visit again soon.

      Reply

  19. I love a new way to reuse all those shopping bags. Your pumpkin looks great! Thanks so much for sharing your links at our “Best Of The Weekend party”! I have pinned this to our party board and to another big board too. We hope to see you again at the next party! Have a great week. xoxo, Claire

    Reply

    • Oh, Claire, thank you so, SO much!! Yeah, I was glad to find a way to stuff the pumpkin with something that I already had plenty of! 😉 Thanks so much for the pins and the chance to share at your party! Blessings to you this week! Sondra

      Reply

  25. We had just over 200 links at our “Best Of The Weekend” party this past week and this was the top clicked link!! Congrats!! You will be featured on all THREE of our blogs when the party kicks off this eve at 8PM EST. yay! make sure to pop over and grab your “Featured” button off one of our sidebars! Have a a great weekend! 🙂

    Reply

    • Oh, Claire… thank you, THANK YOU!! I am SO excited. No, I’m beyond excited!! So much fun!! I’ll be sure to grab the button! You have a great weekend too! 🙂

      Reply

  26. These are too cute! I saw these featured over at best of the weekend party and had to click over! I have a zillion plastic grocery bags and don’t know if I will ever use them but this is a great place to start! I love anything that uses burlap and I cannot wait to try my hand at these!! Thanks for sharing such a cute and amazing project! 🙂

    Reply

  27. I just love this pumpkin! I am a big fan of the burlap and the fact that you used plastic bags for the filling. I am always looking for cute things to make from burlap.

    Thanks so much for linking this to the In and Out of the Kitchen link party. I will be featuring this at the Top 10 Features post that goes live on Monday morning.

    Reply

  32. so how big does this pumpkin turn out to be. a yard of burlap is a fairly a large piece. I am interested in smaller pumpkins and wondering how to downsize.

    Reply

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