Most creative or best decorated pumpkin. That's the title we are aiming for.......we can't take credit for this idea, a few clicks through google or pinterest and the image will come up, but there's no one to take the credit. Too bad! Olaf is one of our all time favorite Disney characters, so we decided to submit him into our preschool Halloween pumpkin decorating contest. Winner receives a free week of tuition. If preschool tuition is in your monthly budget, I bet your ears perked up. Yes, because you know a free week of tuition equates to at least 200 bucks or more.
This gives me the opportunity to also say that we go to the best preschool, The Academy Child Development Center, around town. Brooke has been there since she was 3 months old and we absolutely love it. There are several Academy locations around the Nashville/ Franklin area. Caring, teaching, loving, nourishing, stimulating, all words that I would use to describe The Academy (also voted The Best of Parenting 9 years in a row). Enough bragging about our preschool and on to Olaf.
Here's what materials you'll need to make an Olaf Pumpkin: 2 pumpkins (or one pumpkin and a squash) // peel and stick black felt sheet // white spray paint // 3 large black fuzzy pom poms // 1/4 dowel // carrot // glue sticks // random sticks that you should be able to find around your yard
Tools you'll need: grab some type of hand saw (I grabbed a sheetrock saw because it was the first one I saw) // hot glue gun // drill // Stanley Fat Max straight clipper
Here's what we did:
1. Prepped our surface, wiped down the pumpkin and squash and spray painted those suckers white!
2. Midway through spraying, we decided to cut the pumpkin stem off the Olaf pumpkin body. You decide if you want to keep the stem or let it go (no pun intended)!
3. We took a sheet of the peel and stick black felt and started cutting out Olaf's mouth, eyes, eye brows. We did everything freehand knowing we had plenty of felt if we messed up. We gave Olaf his face.
4. Using the hot glue gun, we added the fuzzy pom poms to Olaf's body.
5. We took a walk in our front yard and found some sticks to use for Olaf's arms and head.
6. We drilled 2 holes in the top of the pumpkin body to accept the stick arms. We did the same at the bottom of the squash head.
7. We inserted the sticks into the body first and then manipulated the sticks to fit into the holes in the bottom of the squash. We found the stick base thickness of 1/4- 1/2 to be the most sturdy for holding the head.
8. We drilled the hole in Olaf's head and inserted the smaller stick.
9. We cut off the carrot top to make a straight edge to drill a hole, and then cut down the 1/4 dowel down to about 3 inches in length. Next, we drilled a hole into the carrot about 1-2 inches deep and inserted the dowel. Then, we drilled a hole in the Olaf head and inserted the carrot with dowel end.
Viola! Here's our new friend, joining us for breakfast!
Not my typical copilot!
Olaf has been submitted and hanging out with all of his new friends. Our odds may be decent, but the competition is stiff! Wish us luck!
