Thursday, September 2, 2010

$3 Thursday

For my second $3 Thursday I thought I would feature a fall themed craft.
I made this pumpkin to put on display this fall.



I made it with these items.
An orange sweatshirt,
fiberfill, a suede scrap
fabric glue and some ribbon.


Monday I went searching for 99 cent items at Savers and found this orange sweatshirt.
On Monday all the orange tagged items were 99 cents so I went looking for orange items with an orange tag.
I lucked out and found a few items but liked this one the best.


It was the perfect shade for a rustic pumpkin.

I imagined a tall narrow pumpkin and started by cutting off a sleeve.
I thought it was close enough to the basic shape I was imagining.


I turned the sleeve inside out and sewed up the bottom.


Then I sewed a box corner on the bottom to make a bottom for the pumpkin.
Don't mind the blue thread. 
I knew it wouldn't show on the finished pumpkin so I used what was in my machine.  :) 
I did trim the corners after they were sewed to remove some of the bulk.


Next turn the sleeve right side out.


Stuff with fiberfill.
I had to really play around with it to make it as smooth as possible.
I didn't want a lumpy pumpkin.....


Next I gathered some brown suede scraps to make the face on my jack-o-lantern pumpkin.
I had a collar from a suede jacket that I was able to use.
I had thought of painting a face on the fabric, I think I might try that on another one.


The corners of the collar made the prefect eyes.
I liked the stitching details of the collar.


Now to decide on the mouth.

Look one - not quite the look I wanted.


Look two - better but still not it.


Look three - nope, too scary.


Look four - I think this is it.  A bit quirky, I like it.


Now to attach the suede to the fabric I used some fabric glue.
Glob, yep, that's my technical term, some glue on the back of the suede.


I smeared it around with my finger to cover it completely.


This is the final look, I added a nose and switched one of the eyes upside down.


Next, I tied some ribbon around the cuff to secure it.
I left some of the ribbon trailing down.


I cut a piece of the jacket collar in a rectangle to size around the cuff.


I applied glue to the suede and wrapped it around the cuff.


I secured the cuff with a paperclip and left it overnight for the glue to dry.


The finished pumpkin on a shelf. 
I think it is a bit too big for this shelf.


Ah, looks better here.
I think I'll make a few more to display as well.


I think I can make quite a few pumpkins from one sweatshirt.  I'm sure I'll have a whole family of pumpkins by the time I'm finishing my Fall/Halloween displays around the house.

Total cost:   $.99 plus some basic supplies I had on hand.

Recycled sweatshirt - $.99
Fiberfill - Garage sale freebie
Suede -  scraps on hand
Fabric glue - on hand
Ribbon -  on hand

As you can see I had most of the items on hand so the cost for this project was only the sweatshirt.
I know the fiberfill would cost more than my $3 project limit but divided by all the pumpkins it would come in well below $3 per pumpkin.
The face on the pumpkin could be painted, felt or what ever fabric scraps you have laying around.

I would love to hear of your inexpensive fall crafts.

June


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