DIY Yarn Pumpkins – The Perfect Craft for Movie Night

These easy diy yarn pumpkins are a fun and creative fall craft! Gather your friends, family, your kid’s scout troop, or whomever! Get the supplies, put on a Hallmark fall movie and settle in for some fun and end up with some adorable chunky yarn pumpkins!

Yarn Pumpkin Supplies:

• Styrofoam pumpkins
• Miscellaneous yarns
• Scissors
• Flexible wool needles
• Screwdriver
• Canned air

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Step 1: Selecting the Pumpkins for this Project.

I have a bunch of foam craft pumpkins left from last year that I am going to use for these diy yarn pumpkins. They are a variety of sizes, but all of them are smaller than five inches across.

If you are looking for dollar store pumpkins to use for this craft, these are the ones you are going to find at Dollar Tree this year. Do shop around. Sometimes a bag of assorted pumpkins can be less expensive than buying individual ones at $1 each. If you use these, you will simply pull off the decoration off the top of them.

Step 2: Prepare Pumpkins to be Wrapped with Yarn

It is simple to pull the stems out of these pumpkins. If you have trouble, you can use a pair of wire cutters to lift it out. You can then dispose of the stem.

After removing the stem from your pumpkin, use the screwdriver to poke a hole through the pumpkin, first through the top and then through the bottom.

Sometimes when you poke the hole the coating on the pumpkin loosens. You can peel off the coating if you would like, but it is not necessary. Also, sometimes there is a small piece of wood in the bottom or the top of the pumpkin. The little piece of wood will usually come off with the coating.

I peeled all of the coating off of the pumpkin below. Use the screwdriver to make the hole as large as you can. You want the hole to be large enough to almost accommodate the handle of screwdriver. This will be handy later.

After you have a hole from the screwdriver, take a pair of scissors and push it into the hole and twist it around to make the hole larger. You will want the hole to be as large as the part of the scissors where the two handles come together OR, again, large enough for a normal screwdriver handle to ALMOST fit through the hole.

I recommend doing this over a trash can like I have done here so most of the loose styrofoam falls down into the trash.

This is when that canned air comes in VERY handy! It is difficult to get rid of all of those little styrofoam scraps. The canned air will clean them off of your hands, your work surface, your scissors, screwdriver and your little pumpkin so it is ready or you to work on!

Step 3: How to Wrap the Pumpkins with Yarn

Select a yarn you want to use with your pumpkin. You can use most any kind of yarn, I will show you a variety of them at the end of this post, but the concept for covering your pumpkins will be the same. I used a variety of yarns for my basket of yarn pumpkins. For this demonstration one, I selected blue and rust twisted yarn that is a medium thickness.

Measure out about 10 yards of yard and double it over lining up the two ends together.

Thread the looped end of the yarn through the eye of the flexible wool needle as shown above.

With the yarn through the needle’s eye, pull the loop of yarn through the hole in the middle of the pumpkin. You can likely find everything you need to make these cute and cozy little pumpkins locally, EXCEPT for those needles. If you want to get to work making a pumpkin patch full of these, make sure you order your needles TODAY! They are selling out quickly this time of year!

Remove the needle from the loop of yarn and put it on the other end of the yarn where the two loose ends are.

Pull the loose ends through the loop that you pulled through the pumpkin.

Continue to pull the loop as tight as possible.

Pull the loop totally tight and down inside the hole in the center of your pumpkin. Pull the yarn tight. As you continue to wrap the pumpkin with the yarn you will want to keep the yarn pulled taut.

With the yarn threaded on your needle you are ready to start wrapping your pumpkin now.

Take the threaded needle and feed it down through the hole, pulling all of the yarn through and pulling it all as tight as you can.

You will have your first wraps of yarn on your little pumpkin! Continue wrapping with the same motion down and through your pumpkin pulling tightly on the yarn each time.

You may have times when the yarn wants to find its way into the crevices or seams of the pumpkins like this one. Don’t fight it, just let the yarn settle in there and then go back and fill the space in between afterwards. It will all get covered.

If you find you need to take a break while you are working on a pumpkin, this is where that screwdriver comes in very handy. Just wedge the screwdriver down into the hole against the yarn and it will hold the yarn securely in place so it won’t loosen until you are ready to come back and complete your project!

When you think you are finished with your pumpkin, make sure you give it a good look all the way around and add another layer of yarn anyplace you think you may need a little more to cover the styrofoam. Finish it off by threading the yarn down beneath the layers of yarn in the middle of the hole in your pumpkin.

When you get to the end of a length of yarn, simply thread it down through the yarn inside the hole on in your pumpkin with the needle. Pull the ends on out of the hole and cut them off. If your yarn is not enough to cover the entire pumpkin, you will start a new piece of yarn. Just begin the same way you began the first, with the loop.

Pull the needle and the rest of the of the yarn through the pumpkin.

Your yarn wrapped pumpkin is complete! All it needs is a stem!

Step 4: Add a Stem to Your Pumpkin

Your pumpkin is looking pretty darn cute at this point!

The final step is to give it a little stem! Collect some twigs or broken branches and cut then into the proper length and just tuck them down inside the hole.

The stem should fit securely and should not need any adhesive of any kind to make it stay in your pumpkin.

Step 5: Display Your Pumpkins

I have chosen a wicker basket to display my pumpkins for now, but I am sure they are going to find their way onto a tablescape before fall is behind us! Wouldn’t these make lovely little place cards for guests on a Thanksgiving table?

As I begin to bring out my fall decorations, these are sitting on my coffee table adding some nice fall color to the room!

Will you try and make these cute little pumpkins? Where will you display yours?

Here is the Hallmark Fall Harvest Movie schedule, just in case you want to plan that crafting and movie night in! Make it a fun evening with this fun project!

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