Fall Crafts: Paper Strip Pumpkin


This easy craft kicked off our fall craftiness. I like it because it uses the similar idea (paper strips) of our Ramadan paper lanterns.

I got the idea from DLTK and used their template for the leaves. I bought green "pipe cleaners"  (or as they were called at Walmart "fuzzy sticks") for the vines.

What you need:
  • Orange construction paper (to be cut up into strips)
  • Scissors
  • Green construction paper for the leaves (or you could print out on green paper or paint the leaves)
  • Fuzzy sticks (for the vines, optional)
  • Paper fasteners (as I grew up calling them, brads)

You can catch the instructions at DLTK but all we (read I) did was cut the orange construction paper into strips (cutting lengthwise) and then punched holes in each end of all the strips and insert a paper fastener at each end. Then, I spread out the strips to form a sphere. I added the leaves and the vines to the top paper fastener (curling the fuzzy sticks with a pencil).

Also, I would take their advisement and cut out more than 12 strips to get a fuller pumpkin. On our first try, we only used 12 and had so much space in between the strips. I cut up more strips so that we had about 23 or so and it was much fuller.

This was our first craft of the evening (yes we started pretty late in the day, the craft bug just hit me) and we went on to make 2 more crafts that evening, the Pom Pom Apple Tree and Button Indian corn. I pretty much made the pumpkin on my own but when the kids saw it they got motivated and we cranked out the other two fun projects.