Create Adorable Pumpkin Decor For Fall By Repurposing A Handy Kitchen Essential

A few pumpkin accents tucked into your fall home decor is a quick way to bring the harvest spirit inside. You don't need to rush out for ready-made decorative pumpkins, either. You can make your own mini paper pumpkins without any special crafting supplies. Ruched tubes of parchment paper tied into a hole-less donut shape become adorable pumpkins in minutes. This super-simple project requires little time, expense, or skill. Plus, this DIY pumpkin craft that involves no carving is delightfully low-mess, although you may miss snacking on toasted seeds post-project.

Gather up unbleached parchment paper (uncoated is best, since it's compostable), an empty tube from paper towels or wrapping paper, a glue stick, craft glue or a hot glue gun, scissors, and raffia yarn. Since the yarn won't show on the final product, you can sub the rafia for string you already have, or even use repurposed twist ties. A snipping of rafia yarn does look charming as a pumpkin stem, but if they're available in your yard, grab a few twigs that can become rustic stems. If not, you can also use cinnamon sticks for this purpose.

If, upon closer inspection, you see that your parchment paper supply is of the white variety, don't go buy a roll of unbleached just for this project! You may be able to dye your white parchment paper. Depending on the type of coating — if any — that's on your parchment paper, a short bath in a container of water and food coloring can give you pleasing results. Just try it on a scrap of paper first as a test.

To DIY this cute pumpkin decor, cut a piece of parchment paper that's a bit wider than the circumference of your paper tube. If you're going the dyeing route, lay your paper in a rectangular pan filled with water and the food coloring mixture of your choice. Let it marinate until you're satisfied with the color, and then hang the paper to dry over a sink or easy-to-clean surface.

Roll your (dry) piece of parchment paper flat around the entire paper tube so that a bit of one cut edge overlaps the other by about 1 inch. Stripe on an edging of glue with the glue stick, and press the two edges together. Before the glue dries, scrunch the parchment paper together as you slide it downward off the paper tube, compacting it down into about a 4-inch ruched cylinder.

Next, slip a piece of string or twist tie through the ruched tube's center, and tie the ends tightly so that the tube becomes a rainbow shape. You should be able to spread the ruching apart enough so that the two ends touch, making a full circle. The shape may hold well enough on its own, but a few dabs of craft or hot glue where the edges touch and overlap might be necessary. Top the pumpkin form with the stem material of your choice, held in place by a bit of glue. Put together a harvest's worth of these mini pumpkins to make your house look cozy all season long.