Pepper Design Blog

Pumpkin Place Card Ideas {Going a Little Gold Pen Crazy}

After a recent second trip to the pumpkin patch with my mom and Liv (I’m thinking that you cannot have too much pumpkin patch + homemade pie this time of the year), I found myself with a stash of beautiful mini white pumpkins. For some reason I am especially attracted to white and gold this fall, so finding a gold sharpie to feed my addiction, I put together a few ideas for Halloween dinner party place cards. Or Thanksgiving? These might work perfectly for Thanksgiving as well.

Having a gold sharpie around can be dangerous! Imagine all of the possibilities…

First up, a gold flowered top. I used the natural creases of the pumpkin to form my little petals and then scribbled away. It offers a neat affect from above.

The pumpkin itself makes for a great place card, just write those names nice and slowly, using a pencil first if necessary.

Liv saw all of the fun I was having and plopped herself down on my lap, picked up the sharpie and began to create her own. I like the result! And then I was fishing a waving sharpie out of a toddlers hand (ah!).

This chevron guy was fun. You really can’t go wrong with a variety of patterns and a little time (best while watching a movie. Or maybe the World Series, go Giants.)

My goldifying days may or may not be over, I’m leaning towards the latter. I’m so glad gold is back. (What else can I sharpie while I’m at it??)

Back to that second trip to the patch. We visited nana and papa this weekend and made a trip to Gizdich Ranch to decorate their house for Halloween. A few slices of fresh apple and olallieberry pie later and we wandered the farm to play. Here are a few fun moments caught on film:

 Liv was not so keen on the obligatory shot with momma, but she rocked out on that spring horse with nana. And that last shot? A favorite. Strike a pose. Happy Thursday! Cant believe it’s less than a week until Halloween.

Gold ‘Dipped’ Pumpkins & Our Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

It feels a little funny to leave home in the middle of a hot summer and come back right in the thick of fall, Halloween, cool weather and changing leaves (well, that last one is almost true. We have only two trees on our street here in San Diego that go from green to red but I marvel at them all season long…) This past weekend we made our annual trip to our favorite pumpkin patch (complete with pumpkin spice lattes before hand and a delicious chili potluck after) and the reality of the season has finally hit! More on that below…

While at the pumpkin patch I picked up a handful of pumpkins to decorate the house with too, and thought I’d share my faux ‘dipped’ versions today.

I’m not sure where the idea came from but while brainstorming fall & Halloween decorations I thought it might be fun to bring a few organic, neutral details into our house (that I wouldn’t mind leaving up for a few months) while also filling it with plenty of oranges and reds and traditional colors.

Gold has been a favorite accent color of mine, from shiny knob handles to burnished vintage vases to classic jewelry – and that became a starting point. Creating some sort of dipped decor out of white and green pumpkins seemed like a neat way to try it out.

I’ll have to mix some spooky Halloween decor in there soon, too.

These pumpkins really don’t looked as if they were ‘dipped’ in paint in the traditional sense, but I actually love the contrast of the lines and attempted to give it a slightly crooked, mis-aligned feel on purpose. A little more organic.

My original thought was that maybe I’d actually try to dip the pumpkins and considered buying a quart of gold paint, filling a round bowl large enough for my pumpkins and literally ‘dipping’ them, but then realized that spray paint might be a bit more efficient in application, cheaper and less wasteful.

I love the result!

Just a little bling for the room, and a fun alternative to decorating pumpkins in the usual way. Soon Liv will be old enough to really help!

The process was simple. I first wrapped the pumpkins with painters tape (choosing the wider version since spray paint can get a little crazy and I wanted to avoid paint getting on the top half of my pumpkins. The alternative would be to tape on some type of barrier like cellophane or paper to cover the top completely), pressing down on just the lower half of the tape (since the edges are round to prevent creases in the tape) and aligning it at a bit of an angle.

Then spray away! Be sure to keep your can of spray paint at least 10-12″ from the actual pumpkin to avoid dripping.

And here they are again in the dining room:

Looks great with the turquoise buffet!

Decorating the pumpkins has been a lot of fun, but visiting the pumpkin patch to find them is a great family tradition, too! Years back a friend found the perfect pumpkin patch for our annual trip just about 25 minutes east of us here in San Diego.

Summer’s Past offers huge, crawling gardens to roam, a snap pea ‘maze’, animals for petting, a coffee bar for warm beverages (although the weather in October is always about 75), a cute little shop full of lavender soaps and such, little ‘vignettes’ around the property that are perfect for holiday photos, jump houses for the kids and a great big open pumpkin patch. We’ve even aligned our visit with their little harvest festival in the past for even more goodies.

Liv romantically walking the gardens with her potential future hubby, Gavin.

Why won’t it move!?

Here’s our group shot this year!

And a sneak back on previous years… the quantity of children continues to climb!

2010

2011

2012

Liv picked out a few pumpkins, enjoyed a little cart ride and played in the jump house for most of the morning. We managed a family photo as well.

Sort of. Liv’s not paying attention, but what can you do…

I look forward to this event with amazing anticipation every fall! This one sort of snuck up on me but I already can’t wait to go back. And now it’s time to really get decorating for Halloween! We’re also throwing a little dinner and trick or treating around the neighborhood party again this year. Yay for fall!

DIY Gold Mercury Glass & Gold Lined Ceramic Vase

In addition to the monster wall project I worked on for the Pinterest Challenge, I also wanted to attempt to tackle a few smaller pinned ideas that I’ve had my eye on. The first was a gold stenciled chevron napkin project and the second, today’s gold mercury glass makeover for a few plain glass vases I have lying around.

My inspiration came from the adorable dipped gold drinking ware that I had pinned over in my Dining Room Inspiration board (that room is getting its makeover soon):

But I modified the project a bit because I was really wanting to create more of a mercury glass effect with that neat, mottled coloring and multiple layers of paint and distressing.

I love my finished vase and I’ll probably use it for holding silverware at a dinner, straws at a party or pencils on my desk in the future. Plus flowers! Looks great in the new bathroom with my new orchid (thanks house guests for the thoughtful gift!).

I opted for a more subtle mercury finish (you could instead take big chunks out of the paint for a more distressed look that you often see in stores – and while I started with that I ended up filling in some of those holes and liking this best) because of the gold rather than the traditional mirror or silver finish.

In a nutshell, here was the process:

I used the super helpful tutorials here and here to get me started.

Now in slow motion… I began by lining a clear glass vase in painter’s tape and paper to keep the paint on the inside of the glass.

Once I had a nice, even coat of gold (I chose Rust-Oleum’s Metallic Gold) I used the above tutorial’s suggestions of blotting vinegar onto the inside of the vase to begin to distress the gold.

I learned the hard way that you don’t want to pour the vinegar in over the edges or you’ll end up with big drip marks in your gold, but you want to squeegie out the vinegar onto the surface until it beads, let sit for a minute or two, and then rub, rub rub!

As I rubbed I slowly began noticing chunks of the gold begin to fall away, creating that distressed mercury glass effect.

Cool, right?

Word of caution: I thought I’d expedite the process (I love to find the best shortcuts) and used a piece of a wire sponge to burnish the inside of the glass for a more distressed look, but that left really scratchy results (hardy har har). Back to the paper towel I went.

When I had finished my distressing I let the vase dry for quite some time (the vinegar will repel any future coats of gold until dry), and then gave another soft spray of gold, another level of distressing and so on until I was happy with the results.

If you put a candle to it you’ll really see the visible layers and holes in the gold for a more ‘mercury’ look, but I’m really digging the subtleness of the distressing with my orchid pot as the backdrop.

The first accessory of many for the new bathroom! More on that very soon .

While I was at it, I used my new favorite spray paint to line the inside of a white ceramic vase, love that bold gold peeking out!

PS you can find my other Pinterest Challenge projects right here, or by choosing one of these guys: diy gold chevron cloth napkins, painter’s tape accent wall or capiz shell pendant (from last year).