How to Paint Buffalo Check Pumpkins for a Farmhouse Fall Display

Put down newspaper to protect your work surface before starting on your gingham painted pumpkin. Use a pencil to lightly draw guidelines for the horizontal sections. The guides will help you keep the lines straight as you paint around the pumpkin. Our sections were about one inch wide, but you can make yours larger or smaller depending on the size of your pumpkin. If you aren't happy with your line placement, just erase it and try again.

Using the natural seams of the pumpkin as a guide, paint gray vertical strokes on every other segment. We used a set of foam brushes ($13, Amazon). Next, fill in the horizontal lines you marked earlier with the same gray paint. You should now have a grid of thick gray lines, with unpainted white squares in between.

Mix a tiny amount of black paint into the gray paint to create a slightly darker shade. (Plain black will be too stark to make the overlapping illusion.) Paint the boxes created by the intersection of the horizontal and vertical lines with the dark gray paint. If desired, paint the stem dark gray to match your painted buffalo check pumpkin. Let the paint dry fully before displaying your creative Halloween pumpkin.