The mornings are getting colder, and pumpkin spice is on every coffee shop menu. Fall is here! One of my favorite parts of the season is decorating my front porch. I love the look of fresh pumpkins, but they go bad so fast. So, I wanted to try something different for my Jack-o-lanterns this year. When I spotted a few rusty old cans and a vintage shovel I knew I was on to something. I used three different techniques with varying difficulty levels.
I started by downloading some free Jack-o-lantern faces online. I then printed them and matched them up to my pieces. To make my stencils I used a sharp blade to cut the faces out then taped them to my pieces and traced the outline with sharpie. (Someone more artistically gifted could free hand a design.)
For my first rustic Jack-o-lantern, I used an old gas can. Print and cut out a design tracing with sharpie. Then I used Chalk Paint® by Annie Sloan in Graphite to fill in the face.
The face required two layers of paint, then I sealed the entire can with clear spray paint to help it hold outside.
The easiest technique was the one I used on the shovel. I cut out my stencil and traced it onto the shovel using sharpie then filled in the face with sharpie and sealed with clear spray paint.
For our most experienced DIYers, cut the face out of the metal using a plasma cutter which created a piece, I could put candles or even use to display a floral arrangement.
Once my pieces were dried overnight, I placed them on the porch just in time to watch the leaves change.
