My pumpkin...sigh I just cant get it how I want it.

So last year at work we started a pumpkin decorating contest tradition.
I won with my Jack Skellington meets Liza Minelli pumpkin. It was FABULOUS.

This year I had to defend my title as reigning champion. AND... I JUST...WASN'T...FEELING...IT.
For Reals. (For reals?? Did I just type that?  Well it stays.)

I had visions of amazing craftiness pouring forth from my glue gun and paint.  I scoured pinterest. I bing'd, I googled.  I had the perfect plan. IT WAS ON! I was winning again, defending my title and winning the jackpot of money. I was so confident.


I was going to turn my humble little pumpkin into a candy apple.

I painted the pumpkin a beautiful shade of apple/lime green.  I used the puffy pearl paint in espresso. It was the perfect shade of caramel-y brown. I let it dry and did a primer for the caramel.
 I started putting the "caramel" onto my pumpkin...it did not want to go onto my pumpkin.  It wanted to slide.  It wanted to have a date with my tabletop and keep- it- neat newspapers. hmmmmm.
 So far not so good.  So I let it dry overnight and the next morning I came down to a caramel apple that looked like it had been sitting on the shelf for a week.  So I thought, "well I will cover it with sprinkles and drizzle it with "Chocolate and white chocolate".  I sprayed an adhesive on the paint/caramel and started putting on my sprinkles.  They were the little foil confetti of bats and witches and pumpkins in various halloween colors.  Like I said, in my mind, this was a brilliant pumpkin. Well these damn confetti sprinkles started clumping together and I dont know if the adhesive reacted with the puffy paint or what...I had confetti sprinkles that looked like someone had stepped on them AND on the apple at the same time.  hmmmmmm.

So final step was the drizzle black and white paint to look like chocolate drizzle. At this point the apple was looking like a crappy apple.  Then I took it one step too far with some orange puffy paint and ruined the whole thing.  I was sick to my stomach about it.
So while I was at work I texted my husband and said  SCRAPE EVERYTHING OFF THAT PUMPKIN I AM STARTING OVER!!!  I have one night to finish it, but I will come up with something.

SO last night I started over.  Thank goodness I have a craft room stocked with rarely used things.  You never know when you are going to need them.
So I did my pumpkin, and although I am not thrilled with the results (A little sloppy if you look to closely) it is 10,000,000,000x better than what I started with.

I ended up decoupaging the pumpkin with Modge Podge and book pages. I used pages from Dorian Gray and Canterville Ghost(to give it a little bit of a creepy halloweeny authenticity). When it dried I stenciled BOO in puffy paint and decorated a paper silhouette spider for the middle O in boo.  I had some orange and black tulle that I did a little bow.
I am not thrilled.  From far away it looks great, but up close its just OK.  You can tell I did it in 3 hours.