Forget the scary jack-o’-lantern face. This year, turn your pumpkin into a fairy house decorated with things you find on an autumn nature walk: twigs, acorns, pine cones, colorful leaves, and tiny stones. Add fairy lights inside for a warm glow, and you’ve got a magical fall craft that doubles as outdoor decor.
Materials
Supplies:
- 1 pumpkin or winter squash (any size or shape)
- Natural decorations collected outside: colorful leaves, pine cones, acorns and other nuts, seed pods, dried flowers, fallen twigs and bark, small stones, moss
- Toothpicks
- Craft glue or hot glue
- Modeling clay
- Twine
- Fairy lights or a battery-powered tea light (optional)
Tools:
- Small sharp knife or pumpkin carving tools (grownup help needed)
- Scissors
Don’t want to carve? Skip the knife entirely. Glue everything directly onto the outside of an uncarved pumpkin. It lasts longer and younger kids can do the whole thing themselves.
Steps
- Go on a nature walk. Head outside and collect decorating materials: fallen leaves, small sticks, acorns, pine cones, seed pods, bark pieces, pebbles, dried flowers, and bits of moss. Collect more than you think you’ll need.
- Pick your pumpkin. Choose a pumpkin or winter squash as your base. Squat, wide pumpkins work well because they’re stable. Lumpy or oddly shaped ones add character.
- Carve the door and windows. Have a grownup carve a small door shape and one or two window openings in the front of the pumpkin. Keep the cutouts, as you can turn them into little shutters. Scoop out enough of the inside to fit a light.
- Frame the windows. Use twigs to outline the windows or divide them into panes. Glue the twigs in place. Add tiny window boxes made from strips of bark, and fill them with dried flowers.
- Build the entrance. Arrange a path of small stones leading to the door. Build a tiny staircase, a ladder, or a fence from sticks and glue. Use a twig for the door handle.
- Add the roof details. Glue overlapping pine cone scales across the top of the pumpkin for shingles. Or layer flat pieces of bark. Add a tiny chimney from a piece of twig.
- Decorate the yard. Press moss around the base for a grassy lawn. Add acorn cap mushrooms (upside-down acorn caps on toothpicks), leaf piles, and tiny stone walls.
- Create the residents. Make fairy-sized characters from acorns (heads), pine cones (bodies), and twig limbs. Use modeling clay to hold pieces together. Add acorn cap hats.
- Light it up. Place fairy lights or a battery-powered tea light inside the pumpkin so it glows through the door and windows at night.
Grownup help needed: Step 3 (carving) and hot glue gun use require adult assistance. All other steps are fully kid-friendly. For a no-carve version, skip step 3 entirely and build everything on the outside.
