Wire-Decorated Pumpkins for Fall

A couple of pumpkins I've decorated with craft wire for autumn:

Pumpkin decorated with spirals made from 18g copper, silver, and gold craft wire, by Sweet Freedom Designs

Small decorative pumpkin wrapped with 18g orange, chartreuse, and dark green Artistic Wire, by Sweet Freedom Designs

Before I go any further, these are NOT my ideas - I bought the book where I found these ideas at least 7 years before I discovered beading. I saw it in a bookstore, bought it, and put it on my craft bookshelf at home, and never touched it again. (Sound familiar?) Then, 2 days ago, I still was looking for book I have been trying to find for about 3 weeks, and decided I might as well look on the craft shelf, and though I didn't find what I was looking for, I did discover this black book with "Halloween" written on the spine in white in a really cool font. I pulled out the book, and the spiral-decorated pumpkin was on the cover, and I knew I wanted to make it! If you like Halloween crafts, you might want to check out halloween, 101 frightfully fun ideas. The book has a wide spectrum of Halloween crafts inside!

So, back to my wire-embellished pumpkins.

Another view of pie pumpkin covered in craft wire spirals, by Sweet Freedom Designs

This started as a pie pumpkin, about 10 inches high and 10 inches in diameter. The book recommends using silver solder to create the spirals, but that's crazy talk! I don't know where they get their silver solder, but around here, it's expensive!

I decided 18g craft wire was a better idea, and even better? I could combine gold, silver, and copper to decorate my pumpkin! Y'all know how I love to mix metals.....

I started out small, and precise, and was hammering my spirals as I created them. And then my OCD and perfectionism kicked in - I got all worried about where the different spirals would go, and fussy about what colors were next to each other (I didn't want a whole cluster of silver, or copper, etc., sitting there - I wanted the colors arranged so there was never a spot with 2 of the same color next to each other! Yeah ..... that didn't happen. LOL.) And I wanted the spirals evenly spaced, and all sorts of other pickiness kicked in. So while I should have probably completed this one in an hour or so, it took me over 8 hours. Yeah, that's right: Eight Hours.

I was going to wrap some green artistic wire around the stem, and create some wire leaves, but after the 8+ hour of creating spirals, I. Was. Done.

Time for the other pumpkin!

Small decorative pumpkin wrapped with 18g Artistic Wire, by Sweet Freedom Designs

This cute little decorative pumpkin won my heart at the grocery store: its shape is perfect, and I loved it's freckled complexion! It's about 4 inches tall (not counting the stem) and about 6 inches in diameter.

The book called for "plastic coated wire" - I didn't have any of that, but I had 18g Artistic wire in bright orange, chartreuse, and dark green. The little pumpkin had an even number of grooves going around it, so I decided to alternate the orange and chartreuse wires for the wrapping on the sides. Then I added the dark green to the other 2 for the stem, twisting all 3 colors together and coiling them around the stem, then turning the ends into coiling tendrils.

The plastic-coated wire in the book shows up a lot better (could be because it is bright pink!), but it is also much thicker than my 18 gauge wire. If I were doing this one over again, I would probably bundle 3 pieces of each color together to wrap in each groove around the sides of the pumpkin. (Full disclosure: in person, the wires on the sides of the little pumpkin show up very well; they just don't look like much in the pics!) I also want my tendrils to be longer, so I will probably go back and wrap in a few more tendrils when I get back to work next week. I may even make a few wire leaves ... who knows?!

Happy Fall, y'all!

3 views of the pie pumpkin covered with craft wire spirals, by Sweet Freedom Designs