It’s no secret that I love growing my own pumpkins, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love decorating with fake ones too!

One fun fall project I decided to try my hand at was making faux pumpkins our of plastic grocery bags, paper mache, and some join compound plaster.  Here’s how to make your very own DIY fake pumpkins.

First, I stuffed some walmart bags with more bags and crumpled up paper.

I tied them and made sure they were all different sizes for realism.

Next I taped the centers together to create pumpkin-like bulges.

For the paper mache part, I mixed one part flour with two parts water (and a couple heaps of salt for preservation)

I coated strips of paper with my mixture and covered the plastic grocery bags.

Once they were dry (give it a day or two, or until it feels hard to the touch) I coated the paper mache with some joint compound.

I let that dry for several days, sanded it smooth, and added another layer. Once that layer was dry. I sanded it down again.

These are the two colors of acrylic paint I mixed together to create the blueish grey color for my pumpkins.

We watered down the paint and started adding it to the plaster pumpkins. To see a super detailed step by step on how I painted my plastic fake pumpkins to look SUPER real, go to this post HERE.

I found that making it super runny gave the most realistic texture.

Once they were painted with the grey blue color, I added a white wash.

Here they are mixed in with some of my real ones. I added sticks for the stems, but I plan on replacing those with real stems from this year’s pumpkins when I harvest the seeds.

One of the main reasons I decided to make my own, is because I’ma thrifty soul, and I knew it would be cheaper to make them then to buy more plastic ones (believe me, I already have QUITE the collection of fake plastic ones!)

I really love how they turned out. Not super realistic, but whimsical enough to be a great addition to the home grown ones I have harvested from the garden (see my tips on how to grow your own pumpkin patch HERE)

Want to see how my tips on painting store bought pumpkins to look real? Check out my post HERE. Also, if you want to grow your own real pumpkins, I’ve got you covered! Below are the links to the seeds I purchased for my pumpkin patch last year. And for my tips and tricks for growing your own pumpkin patch, see my post: “How To Grow Heirloom Fairytale Pumpkins From Seed (DIY Pumpkin Patch!)”