Paper Mâché pie pumpkin Jack-o'-lanterns

 

Cheap, cheerful and so simple to make, I call these my pie pumpkins, because they are small and round. 

Admittedly, this isn't the most original project, but I am posting as a document more as an example of what you can do, and what mistakes I've made on this year's Jack-o-lantern. I've highlighted my mistakes using bold text if you just want to skip the main body of text.

Supplies

• scrap paper (newspaper, receipts)
• balloon
• 1/2 -1 cup flour
• 1/2 -1 cup water
• pencil
• yellow acrylic paint
• orange acrylic paint (or mix red and yellow paint)
• black acrylic paint
• flameless tealights

Tools

• old jar
• small container for flour and water mix
• x-acto knife
• paintbrush
• scissors

1a) Blow up your balloon. Mine was about 15 cm in diameter. If you want a more classic pumpkin shape, you can tie string around the balloon. I was never able to get them tight enough to make deep ridges, but it does flatten the bottom of the pumpkin, giving a more natural shape. This year I skipped the string (it's much faster)

1b) Rip up your paper in to pieces around 5cm x 5cm (1.5" x1.5")

2) Mix you flour and water mixture (usually about 50/50 ratio, but add less water at first and mix the paste up) you want the mixture runny, especially for the underlayers, so that the paper is easy to apply to the curved surface

3) Cover the balloon with 2 layers of paper and allow to dry. Do not cover the balloon knot (ie leave a little hole on top). You can use a jar or jar lid to hold the balloon/stop it from rolling around as you apply the flour/water mixture. If you'd like to speed up the process, you can blow dry the paper mâché with a blow-dryer, but do not use any heat. Heat will expand the air in the balloon, allowing it to burst through the paper. 

4) Once the first 2 layers of paper are dried, apply 3 more layers and allow to dry.

5) When the paper is dry completely (it should be room temperature, not cold), remove the balloon by cutting a small hole at the base of the knot, then hold the knot as the balloon deflates, remove the balloon.

6) Find out where you want to draw the face with a pencil (surface will be hard, so you can take an erasure to remove any mistakes) I used a permanent marker to "ink" my sketch - don't do this because it was hard to paint over the marks that were left. For the base, where the tealight will go, use a jar to mark out a circle on the bottom. Also mark where you want the stem to go.

7) Cut out your eyes, nose, mouth and bottom hole using an x-acto knife. If you used string or rope to adjust the shape, this will be a little more challenging, just be sure and have some scissors ready to cut the string where needed

If you make a mistake when cutting, or a tooth rips out, fix it by adding a layer of paper mâché. If the layers of  paper are separating apply just the flour/water mixture to the areas that need to be better glued together.

8) To create the stem, take a strip of paper, or an old receipt, cover 1/2 of the length in paper mâché mixture and gently twist it until it's tightly wrapped. then apply the mixture to the flat/ untwisted part of the piece and place on the top of the pumpkin. If you want the stem thicker, take another strip of paper, apply paper mâché mixture to the whole piece, lay 1/2 the piece over the top of the pumpkin at the base of the stem, then take the remaining par of the pare and  twist it around the existing stem.

8) Once the Jack-o'-lantern is completely dry, add yellow acrylic paint to the inside. You can add a bit of water to the paint, to make it more runny, so you coat the inside faster. Once the yellow paint is dry, paint the exterior of the lantern with orange paint. I used black for the stem so that they would look more graphic.

9) Turn the flameless tealight on and place the pumpkin overtop.  

As you can see in the image below, the background lanterns used string wrapped around the balloon - they are flatter on the bottom, this year's lantern is much more round.