Easy To Make Faux Cement Pumpkins

Do you have any old, beat-up foam pumpkins left over from past Falls? Today I have an easy way to make them look like cement using a couple of faux finish ideas.

Great Idea For Your Old Foam Pumpkins!

When I was going through my Fall bins last week, one thing was for sure…I have so many pumpkins from over the years! I don’t know how I ended up with so many.

So many of them had already been painted once or were starting to look a little dingy and I knew that I wouldn’t be using them this Fall so I put them aside.

Then I saw a set of terracotta pumpkins on the Pottery Barn website and got a great idea for how to utilize them so I would actually use them!

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Here’s my inspiration for these faux cement pumpkins:

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Find Foam Pumpkins

The first thing I did was sort through my old foam pumpkins to find 3 different sizes to transform. These were originally from Walmart and I think they still sell similar ones ( cream with the gold crackle). Just about every discount and dollar store sells fake pumpkins so if you don’t have any on hand they won’t be hard to find right now,

Coat With Joint Compound

Next, I grabbed truly my favorite DIY product…my tub of joint compound! Note…joint compound and spackle are NOT the same and perform differently,

This is my secret product to transform pieces into faux pottery and cement.

To spread the joint compound over the pumpkins I used a plastic paint knife. But any plastic knife will work and probably even the back of a plastic spoon.

Don’t forget to cover the stems with the joint compound too!

The joint compound needs to completely dry out before I could go on to paint them so I let them dry overnight.

It will really depend on your climate and temperature as to how long the pumpkins will take to dry, if you coated them in the morning they might be ready to paint by later in the day.

Paint the Foam Pumpkins

To try and achieve the faux cement look I painted the pumpkins with a slightly grayish white chalk paint.(Nimbus by Waverly).

The chalk paint has nice coverage and one coat was enough to cover the joint compound.

Don’t forget the stems!!

Creating Faux Cement Look

Make Speckles

The first thing I did to create a faux cement look was to squeeze a small amount of dark gray paint onto a small plastic plate and then add a few drops of water to thin it out.

Next, I dipped the bristles of an old toothbrush into the paint.

There are a couple of different ways to create paint speckles. One way is to run the toothbrush across the top of a plastic knife pulling the toothbrush towards you (don’t run the toothbrush away from you because the paint splatters will get all over you!), That is the technique that I used when I made my paint-speckled egg project.

The other technique for getting the paint speckles is to just tap the toothbrush over the pumpkin using the handle of a paintbrush.

Add Cement Colored Details

To add more detail and create that cement look like my inspiration pumpkins I squirted a dollop of both a putty shade and dark ashy gray paint onto my plate.

Then I alternated between the 2 colors.

I only added a teeny amount of paint to the end of my paintbrush and tapped most of the paint off onto a paper towel.

The secret is to make sure your brush has almost no paint on it, this is called dry brushing.

Then I made some criss-cross shapes and ran my brush back and forth…I didn’t want the pumpkins to all have the same uniform look.

final touch

Now, you can stop here and your pumpkins will look great! For one last final touch, I sprinkled crushed chalk dust onto the pumpkins and rubbed it over the surface with my fingertips. This creates a super matte look.

I had crushed chalk on hand from a couple of other projects last week, my Pottery Barn terracotta pumpkin dupe, and my fake pottery jug vase.

Finished Faux Cement Pumpkins

It’s easier to see all the texture that the joint compound added to these pumpkins now that they are on display.

So instead of tossing those beat-up old fake pumpkins try to upcycle them into something new to use in your Fall decorating this year.

Here are a few more pumpkin ideas to check out!

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