Plastic Bag Pumpkins

Plastic Bag Pumpkins

In the happy days before Covid, when we got our shopping delivery, we would choose to have no carrier bags. However during the pandemic all shopping deliveries were delivered in carrier bags and very quickly, we found that we had a huge collection building up. A crafty project was clearly needed to use a few of them up!

This week at school, Rory has been celebrating Harvest Festival and Halloween will quickly be here too and so we used our plastic bags to create pumpkins. These are super easy and quick to make which means you can make a few to create a fantastic Harvest or Halloween display.

To make a plastic bag pumpkin, you will need:
– Carrier bags (We used an orange one on the outside for the classic pumpkin look but you could get creative and make a whole range of colours!)
– Wool or Garden Twine
– A Stick
– Leaves
– Sellotape
– Scissors
– Marker Pen

First, lay out the carrier bag that you wish to use for the outside and use the marker to draw a big circle on it. As you can see, it does not need to be perfect.

Next cut out your circle. If your carrier bag has writing on it, make sure that it is facing upwards so that it ends up being inside the pumpkin.

Hold your stick in the middle of the circle. Scrunch your plastic bags into balls and place them around the stick. Keep adding balls until you have a nice, round pumpkin shape.

The next part can be a tiny bit fiddly. I would suggest cutting a few pieces of tape before you start this bit so you are not trying to hold the pumpkin and cut tape. Pull the circle up over the plastic bag balls and use your sellotape to hold it in place at the top. Don’t worry if the top isn’t too neat, or you can see a little of the inside bags because the top will be hidden by the leaves. Give your pumpkin a bit of a squeeze to get the perfect shape.

Next, we want to give the pumpkin its traditional shape. Take your wool or twine and wrap it a few times around the bottom stick. Leave a bit of a tail so you have something to tie the other end back to. Then wrap your wool or twine around your pumpkin pulling it as tight as you can so it forms the round pumpkin sections. I went round four times so my pumpkin was separated into eighths. When you have finished wrapping, tie the end of your wool to the tail you left by the stick. Trim the ends of the wool or twine. You can move the wool around if you find you any sections are to small or too big.

The final touch is to add the leaves. You could attach these using double sided tape, or just fold sellotape back onto itself in a loop so the sticky side is on the outside. Stick your leaves to the top of your pumpkin.

You can experiment by making different sized pumpkins by drawing different sized circles. A dinner plate sized circle makes a tennis ball sized pumpkin. You could use a stick of cinnamon to make your stalk which would also add a fabulous autumnal fragrance to your pumpkin!

If you have a go at making a Plastic Bag Pumpkin, I’d love to see.
Do tag me in your photographs on social media.
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