A great way to make pumpkins using walnuts in time for this Halloween!

I am hosting a supper this Halloween and I wanted to decorate a little, not a huge amount, but a little. I wanted teeny orbs of orange to be dotted around the place and so I began to make my decorative pumpkins from walnuts. They are just the size I wanted and are a great mould to work with as walnuts are so sturdy. The insides  can also be eaten after use and the shell can be used as stuffing in other craft projects, so they are a recyclers’s dream!

Place a walnut in the middle of a piece of orange/pumpkin coloured felt. I cut my felt to approximately 4.5 inches square but you may have to work according to the size of your walnuts when cutting your felt.

Cut in to the felt creating one flap at a time and glue, using a glue gun, each flap up and around the walnut. Do that to each side of the walnut until you have covered the whole thing. It should look something like this.

Then, trim the excess felt off from around the top of the walnut and insert a tiny stem of green pipe-cleaner into the middle of the trimmed felt. Use a blob of  glue to do this.  If you are using a hot glue gun, which I recommend, then the stalk you have just created will stay put almost immediately.

I then went on to make the faces for my pumpkins. I wanted some friendly faces and try to stay away from the ghoulish if I can. Halloween is not scary to me but a time when I get to decorate and celebrate once again.

I made the faces for my pumpkins out of circles of green card, drew my features on freehand and stuck them to the front of the pumpkin. Doing it this way brings more brightness to your pumpkins and adds a shot of colour.

I made some adorable table place settings out of some of my pumpkins, as you can see in the above picture. Adding the pumpkins to a tiny terracotta plant pot and trimming it with real pumpkin seeds. These are great ways to encourage your kids to eat at the table as they make it a place of celebration and fun. Each person can have a different pumpkin in their setting at the table and before you know it you’ll have a whole family of pumpkins joining you for supper!

If you would like to see other ways of using these pumpkin walnuts to decorate with then check out my Pumpkin Wreath and my Pumpkin banister.