Pretty Pumpkin & Stand

Let your imagination go wild while creating this neat craft. Click to enlarge.

• Two 9-1/2-inch wood plates
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Drill
• 1/8- and 1/16-inch drill bits
• 7-inch stool leg
• Two 1-inch wood screws
• Screwdriver
• Wood glue
• Black spray paint
• Decoupage medium
• Paintbrush
• Glitter in purple, orange, lime green, and black
• Silver glitter glue
• 16 gems, 8 gold and 8 purple
• Copper wire
• Wire cutters
• Metallic purple beads
• Needle-nose pliers
• Pumpkin

1. To make the stand, mark the center of each wood plate. Using a 1/8-inch bit, drill a hole in the center of each plate. Using wood screws, attach the plates to the stool leg, with the plate bottoms facing the leg ends. Add wood glue to the ends of the stool leg before tightening the screws. Let dry.

2. In a well-ventilated work area, spray-paint the stand black. Let dry.

3. On the stand top, measure and mark 16 equally spaced dots 1/4 inch in from the edge. Using a 1/16-inch bit, drill a hole at each dot.

4. On the rim of the top plate, brush on decoupage medium. While wet, sprinkle with purple glitter. Add different colors of glitter to the stool leg, working on one section at a time. To add stripes to the base plate, paint wide stripes approximately 1 inch apart using decoupage medium. Sprinkle with purple glitter. Add narrow green glitter stripes between the purple stripes. Let dry.

5. Between each pair of drilled holes, add a pea-size dot of glitter glue. Place a gem on each dot of glue, alternating gold and purple. Let dry.

6. Cut 16 6-inch-long pieces of wire. Using needle-nose pliers, coil one end of each wire, leaving 1 inch straight. Slip a bead on the straight ends. Poke the wires up through the holes in the top plate. Use the pliers to make small loops at the ends of the wires to secure.

7. To trim the pumpkin, use a pencil to draw a checkerboard on the pumpkin. Using decoupage medium, paint two or three squares and then sprinkle with black glitter. Continue until the design is complete. Add purple glitter triangles, squares, and rectangles between the black areas. Paint decoupage medium on the stem and sprinkle with green glitter. Let dry.