Needles 'n' Knowledge: Vinyl Swirl Decor for Painted Pumpkin

Vinyl swirl and dotted tendril, spider and leaf pumpkin decorations

are now available in a single cut file design

from SnapDragon Snippets

through the Silhouette America online store.
(This is the thumbnail filled line drawing concept art.)

My finished pumpkin decor project.

Follow the tutorial steps to see how this was created, step by step. The decorations are the pumpkin decor vinyl collection (design 49359 ) and happy halloweeen phrase (design 13140).

First obtain a pumpkin that you wish to decorate. Your may find a white one (or real one, etc.) that is just what you need. Mine began as a slightly damaged metal pumpkin. I began by spray painting white primer coats, then I base coated over the white with black (2 good thick coats of acrylic black). One thing I learned: if you are going to use black acrylic decorative paint in late September or October, be sure to buy it early. The shelves of several crafts stores had NO black in any of the 3 varieties of this kind of paint they normally sell.

My original pumpkin had a crackle finish, I wanted to reproduce that look, so the next coat is a good consistent coating of Crackle paint. It goes on glossy and smooth.

The top coat is light ivory, one of my favorite "white" neutrals because it has some country flavor without much yellow. This coat should go on quite thick and smooth from the first stroke, because there will be no chance to add another coat. This layer will begin to crackle as it dries (within minutes, almost too quickly). So my black base coats will show through. I am also going to gloss black coat the stem, leaves and tendrils separately. After all the painting is completed, I like to apply a spray painted protective coat such as semi-gloss or matte varithane.

Now, while my paint is final drying, I play with the Silhouette shapes. I opened my cut file, prepared the vinyl to feed into the Cameo, then selected the shapes I reasonably might use. I would NOT need the leaves as cut vinyl (my pumpkin has attached metal leaves - though I may cut double side adhesive and apply glitter). I have added a phrase design to cut as well as the focal point. I will position the swirls around the phrase.

Here I have cut the shapes that I could fit onto my vinyl sheet, and have weeded away the excess surrounding vinyl.

You may find it advisable to cut the shapes apart BEFORE weeding, so you can weed and prepare them one by one.

Carefully lay the transfer sheet over the weeded vinyl shapes completely.

I cut up the shapes so that I could place them individually. You can see that shapes I am "auditioning" are the cut vinyl on the carrier paper with the transfer sticky paper over the top. I use masking tape to hold the shapes in place while I am visualizing and designing my finished pumpkin.

Once I am pleased with the arrangement, I "hinge" the shape upward while the placement tape holds its position, remove the carrier paper, re-position transfer/vinyl shape then apply pressure to smooth the vinyl onto the pumpkin and remove the transfer shape.

Roll the transfer layer back carefully, to watch to make sure that the circles attach completely. If they don't, roll it back into position and burnish (rub) over the shape the help it adhere. Or assist the lead edge that is pulling up with a finger nail or tool so that it can grab the surface and stick.

I have cut a duplicate shape of the sider from double sided adhesive paper, removed the backing, and then am placing it over the vinyl black spider.

With the protective top layer off, I carefully sprinkle on fine black glitter. Other shapes would be nice with some sparkle, too, like the "Happy Halloween", or some of the swirls, or a leaf or two.

To add even more dimension and detail, I will add extra self-stick black rhinestones to the top of some of the vinyl dots (the original design was sized to match these sizes fairly closely), and also may use some commercially available pearl flourishes.