pumpkin | Oopsey Daisy

Over the weekend, I dug out my decorations for fall.

Admittedly, I've been pretty terrible with decorating for holidays lately. Besides digging out my plastic Easter eggs during the spring, our decorations are simply creating dust in the basement. But not now. I'm busy decorating for fall! Of course my old decorations needed a few new additions, so I got to work.

I have always been a huge fan of black and white. So I am in LOVE with these beauties on my front porch. Both of these pumpkins were inspired by pictures I found on Pinterest. (Pinterest is definitely my new go-to source of inspiration!)

Just because it's Monday and I could use a double dose of something wonderful, today I want to share TWO easy pumpkin tutorials with you:

A jeweled spider pumpkin

PLUS a tights (or panty hose!) pumpkin

Let's get started...

Normally I'm not a big creepy crawly fan, but I am lovin' this jeweled spider!!

I bought a large white pumpkin at Michael's. Here's what I did..

1. I just had to try out the new Martha Stewart line! So I mixed the glaze with the acrylic "pearl" paint. I got a lovely shade with tons of shine and texture.

2. I gave the pumpkin a few coats and let it dry.

3. Also at Michael's (there was a great sale!), I purchased a spider jewel sticker by Martha once again. I found some black jewels that matched the color and size of the spider fairly well to create the spider's trail.

4. Once the paint was dry, I applied all of the jeweled stickers to the pumpkin. Easy enough!

Here is my finished spider pumpkin!

Prettiest spider I've ever seen.

Now on to tutorial #2! I have seen a few versions of panty hose pumpkins and I had been dying to try it out!

I found these 2 lovely little orange pumpkins at Wal-Mart for cheap. I tore off the stems and gave these little guys a shade of Heirloom white spray paint.

I had an old pair of tights laying around--lucky for me it had an interesting pattern! So I cut the tights in half--one leg for each pumpkin!

I just squished the pumpkin through the leg of the tights. It was a bit tricky to get it to fit at first, but it just took a bit of pushing. I tied a knot at the bottom of the pumpkin and cut off the extra.

At the top, I decided I wanted something stem-like. So I stuck in a finial that happened to fit beautifully where the stem was. Then I hot glue the bit of tights left around it to create a stem.

I LOVE how this turned out. I love how the pattern of the tights gives the pumpkin so much personality!

These just makes me happy.

So how are YOU decorating for fall??

WARNING: Do not read this post if you are hungry!

It really didn't take me long at all to bust out the pumpkin this year. You may remember how last year (at least where we lived) there was a pumpkin shortage! By the time I finally found canned pumpkin in the stores, I stocked up big time. I'm simply a sucker for all things pumpkin.

So on September 1st, I declared it the season of pumpkin and started a pumpkin-baking marathon! In my house, I'm really the only person who eats sweets. (Okay, sometimes Little Man eats a few bites, but his little appetite doesn't count for much!) Often I crave sweets and make batches of something yummy. Then altogether too soon, I get a little tired of the yummy things I bake.

Not these muffins.

This recipe makes a whopping 2 1/2-3 dozen. But I am enjoying each and every morsel--and still eating them 3 times a day! In all the food marriages in all the world, I think pumpkin and chocolate could surely have the most enduring love of all.

Pumpkin Muffins

3 1/3 c. flour

2 1/4 c. sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

2 c. pumpkin

4 eggs

1 c. oil (May also substitute 1 c. applesauce instead!)

2/3 c. water

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. chocolate chips (I'm not gonna lie. I usually add many more!)

Mix together first 5 ingredients. Make a well and add liquid ingredients. Mix in chocolate chips. Spoon into muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Makes about 2 1/2-3 dozen muffins.

* If you're in the mood for pumpkin bread, this make a yummy pumpkin bread too!!

If you don't want to copy down the recipe...

Take it from me--these are delish!! You know you want some!!

And in case you're wondering what happened to Wednesday's Wowzers, this recipe is SO yummy, I felt it necessary to interrupt my regular schedule just to share it with you!