I happened across this completely out-of-this-world photo while blog hopping this morning. I SO want to make this. I actually have a pattern for some similar little mice, and the pumpkins would be difficult but not impossible to find. I have seen similar pumpkins around, but the expense might be ridiculous. Also, I will never find belt buckles like those. One might suspect that all of this impossibly clever craftiness would originate with one Martha Stewart. However, one might be wrong...it actually came from last years Hallmark Magazine. I checked the website, and much to my disappointment, it has gone belly up just like my FAVORITE magazine of all time Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion. How that mag could not exist is beyond me. Anyway, I thought I would post the instructions for the pumpkiny transport device here. I found it on a blog called www.artsanddafts.com. Photo and directions are from Hallmark Magazine. If this doesn't make you feel all Halloweeny inside, I just don't know what will!
How-To Make the Carriage Pumpkin:
You'll Need
- 3 ornate metal belt buckles
- 1 pumpkin, about 12 inches tall
- Pencil or marker
- Knife
- Craft glue
- 1 ornate lamp finial
- Cordless drill fitted with ¼-inch bit
- 4 gourds, about 4 inches tall
- 2 quarter-inch dowel rods, cut to the approximate diameter of your pumpkin
- 4 ornate drawer pulls
- Heavy-gauge florist's wire
1. Trace the inside of each belt buckle on the pumpkin with a pencil and cut to create openings for two windows and a door. Glue the hardware over the openings. Remove or cut down the stem until it's even with the flesh of the pumpkin, and twist the finial into the top.
2. To create wheels, drill a hole through the center of each gourd. Insert one dowel rod into the holes of two gourds to create an axle, and secure with glue. Repeat to create a second set of wheels. Finish off all four wheels by inserting a drawer pull into the outside hole of each gourd for hubcaps.
3. Line up the two sets of wheels next to each other at about the same width as your pumpkin. Then wrap wire from one dowel rod to the other to fasten the axles together and to create a webbing for the pumpkin carriage to sit on.
4. Gently place your carriage on the wire.
I do believe little white mice can become cheese-loving footmen with cute little noses.
I do believe that large pumpkins can become sweet smelling carriages with a slightly damp interior.
I do believe in Fairy Godmothers.
5 comments:
That is sooo seriously cute! Are you going to make it out of one of those "fake carve it" pumpkins so I could stash it for next year too?
Crafty store "mini frames" could replace the belt buckles in a pinch. (www.skybluepink.com) Catnip mice could fill in for the "made mice".
Oh yeah, that is so seriously cute! Please post pics when you give it a try!
Mary E's magazine is still around? I have no idea how any of them keep going anymore. My subscription to Top Gear is about to expire and I just can't justify the cost anymore. Even with Bob trying to loosen me up!
I hadn't thought about one of the fake pumpkins actually. That might make it more financially friendly! I wonder if you can find greenish ones. Probably, or I could just paint it. You are too crafty for your own good! If I make it, I will post pics, but likely as not you will make it and then YOU will have to post pics so I can live vicariously through you. I can make the little mice with only a bit of trouble, my problem is then I'd want to dress them. And no, Mary's mag is defunct for the time being. I miss it so! Especially the paper dolls. They were my favorites! I hear you on the TG mag. I pick it up and finger through it at B&N, but have never bought one because it is a tad pricey, and there are so many lovely paper craft mags out there!
What a great idea, my daughter will love this! I pick up old issues of Mary E's magazine every once in awhile at a local thrift store- I hope it isn't gone forever...
You know what, Justine, you are right! Those rascals! I have found so many things that create ridiculous expectations about what is actually attainable in the world. I would like to also register my disapproval with Brad Paisley. This one man has created such unreasonable expectations of what husbands can actually FEEL and CONVEY that men should absolutely DESPISE him! And women should too, since there is only one of him and he appears to be quite taken with his Mrs... Darn country music...In other words, I agree with you wholeheartedly!
The "fake-real carvable" pumpkins were on sale 50% off at some store I was in last weekend. I resisted the urge to buy one for this "project". Holding the line at completing projects and not starting new ones is a toughie!
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