Bookish Crafts: Bookish Pumpkins!

If you're anything like me, you like crafts. But to me, there's something that's even better than just crafts....it's BOOKISH CRAFTS. I spend quite a bit of what limited free time I have making bookish crafts, whether it's some of my tote bags or even my swag frames or book hook marks, but today I have something new I want to show you. 

HOW TO PAINT A BOOKISH PUMPKIN!

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• White Spray Paint
• A pumpkin!
• A sharpie
• Acrylic paint (all the colors needed) for your design
• A bookish cover/desgin
• Various paint brushes
• Newspaper

DIRECTIONS:

• First you need to choose a pumpkin! I chose a smaller one, because this takes awhile and doing a bigger one was not viable. I didn't have enough time to spend on one, but it will work just the same if you choose a bigger one! I got this one from Wal-Mart for $1.37!
• Then you need to go outside, place your pumpkin on some scrap paper and spray paint it white for a base color. If you don't do this, it'll be much harder for your acrylic paint to stick to the pumpkin's surface. Take my advice, or you will have to paint several coats!
• While your base coat is drying, take the time to choose a bookish design. I went with a book cover (Talon by Julie Kagawa), because they are my specialty, but you can choose anything you want! 
• Once your design is chosen and your base coat is dry, take a sharpie and make a rough sketch of your design, it might look crappy, but remember, this will be covered with paint, so it doesn't matter! Something you might try if you aren't a skilled free-drawer, is to trace your design or print it out from your computer, and cut it out. Tape the cut page to the pumpkin, and outline it on there. You should have a pretty close outline then! Pretty much the same thing you would do if you were carving it!
• After you have your design drawn, it's time to get to the fun stuff! For my cover, I needed a red base, so on top of the already white spray painted base, I used a sponge paint brush to dab on red paint. DAB IT! Don't try to paint like you would normally, or again, you will be painting several coats. If you dab it, it should stick with one! 
• Let that base dry. Once it's dry, start painting your other colors. These you can paint like you normally would, but I would use a smaller fine paintbrush. This is the part that's time-consuming, because I have yet to find a way to make it stick with one go. I had to go over the gold on mine at least twice, and that was using an abundance of paint with each stroke. 
• Let that dry. After it dries, you may choose to outline it, like I did (which you can see below). This takes a steady hand! But any mistakes you make, remember, can be painted over! 
• Once you're finished painting...VOILA! You have a bookish painted pumpkin! It takes a few tries to get good at this. I've been doing this for years, and I think this is the best one I've ever done, so don't get discouraged! Just keep practicing. Remember practice makes perfect! At this point, you may choose to seal your design. I use a spray can of clear Mod Podge. Just use the directions on the can, and once finished & dry your pumpkin is ready for display! 

 My finished painted BOOKISH PUMPKIN for Talon! 

And there you have it my friends! Hopefully that was easy to understand! If you have any questions, feel free to holla at me below or on twitter! What bookish craft should I make next?