We’re coming up to the point of year where we can all start thinking about some over-the-top mouldings. Who wants subtlety right? Well, what a great time to get crafty with some decorative mouldings…on a pumpkin.

It’s so simple but the final effect is astonishing.

So, pumpkin washed I used Dixie Belle’s Boss to stop any bleeding – it turns out pumpkins can be bleedy. Sticking with Dixie Belle, I used their rich Amethyst as a base coat as it goes well with the new Posh Chalk Violet Metallic Paste.

We touched on broken mouldings and how to fix them in a blog post a few weeks ago. Another great way to make use of any broken mouldings is simply to repurpose them, just like the decorative mouldings which is the focal point of this pumpkin design. Having heated them on the griddle for about fifteen minutes, warming the mouldings up to a warm and bendy 80°C I placed the recycled 2144 mouldings over the pumpkin until they cooled and kept the contours of the pumpkin. WoodUbend mouldings generally take about as long to cool down as they took to heat up; granted these decorative mouldings had been on the griddle for a fair while, they would normally take a minute or so to warm up with a heat gun.

I love the brand new Posh Chalk luxury coatings so the mouldings were definitely getting painted in the new Orange Gold Pigments, perfect for the Autumn and Christmas period. Always add the mixer to your pigments, rather than the other way around – that way it’s easier to keep a handle on how much of your pigments your using; fine tune it even more by using a pipette.

You can always chose the consistency of your pigments in how much mixer you chose to add. I wanted a deep, thick colour for the decorative mouldings so using less mixer and more pigments would give me just that effect.

Dry brushing time!

The Violet Metallic Paste combined perfectly with Dixie Belle’s Amethyst, dry brushing with the paste picked out the natural texture on contour of the purpley pumpkin. The great thing about the metallic paste is that it dries super fast so you can get projects done in great time. No waiting around here.

The decorative mouldings I used had some real intricacies in the design. The Black Posh Chalk Patina is perfect to add depth. With the patinas it’s a good idea to use a little more than what you actually need and come back in with a baby wipe to remove the excess, the will really help the patina to get into all the little contours of the design and the final result give a fantastic aged look.

I applied the same technique to the pumpkin now that the metallic paste was dried, it worked really well to accentuate the natural contours of the pumpkin.

All the was left was to mix up the shimmery, metallic Red Carmine Pigments to coat the stem with. Again, using my pipette so I could accurately control how much of the mixer I was using, making it much easier to find the consistency I was aiming for.

There we have it, decorative mouldings for a decorative time of year!