Lilly Pulitzer Inspired Pumpkins

If you've been reading up on blogs this past Halloween season you might have run across these particular pumpkins. My mom, Ramblings of a Southern Girl, loved the pumpkins I painted for my apartment and wanted to share them on her blog. Now being a child of a blogger you typically deal with:

1. Not being able to eat your dinner until a picture has been taken of it

2. Never quickly browsing a store, event, or any type of decor for that matter without waiting for a picture to be taken

3. Talking to your mom while she's on the computer and wondering if she's really listening or thinking of an adjective to describe her "fabulous" new flea market find

...but I digress.

When she asked I quickly agreed and sent pictures. Fast forward to about a week later and my pumpkins have gotten a ton of features. If you haven't seen Mom's post about them you can check it out here.

I thought I would give a little back story and walkthrough to these cheerful pumpkins. Even though I wish I could say I did, I didn't just get the brilliant idea to paint flamingos on a pumpkin in the middle of the fall. Like most things I do, I got my inspiration on Pinterest. While browsing I frequently say "Now why didn't I think of that!?" I said this very thing when I stumbled upon a picture of someone elses version of a flamingo Lilly pumpkin posted a few years ago. The flamingo idea came from the Lilly Pulitzer print above.

Here's a little behind the scenes action and step by step....

First I used a turquoise paint for the background. Here and there I made flamingo bodies in pink. At this point I was thinking "this might not turn out so well." I took a little bit of white paint and made faces and swirls "feathers" on their bodies. This was the point that I said "now I know this definitely won't turn out well." They were looking like a very creepy character from a Dr. Seuss book. After I added eyes and touched up the feathers, it was definitely turning out more flamingo like. Now I would comment on how I didn't paint too many flamingos so it wouldn't turn out too congested looking. ...In all honesty, I got lazy. So I quickly painted my pink tiny pumpkin, glittered the stem, and called it a night!

Hope you enjoyed my point of view on these adorable pumpkins! My poor pink pumpkin has been thrown out due to a bad case of molding and rot. However, my pretty flamingo pumpkin is alive and thriving. I keep telling myself that when it decides to die on me it will be a sign that it is time to put up Christmas decorations! And of course, I've already found a way for Lilly Pulitzer to creep into my Christmas decor. So stay tuned!