Yarn Pumpkins

10/22/2018

Here’s what you’ll need for each yarn pumpkin:

• 21 pieces of orange yarn cut to 36-inch lengths
• 2 ounces of white glue (I used glue from the dollar store)
• 1 balloon (12-inch size) blown up half full
• 1 brown pipe cleaner and 1 green pipe cleaner

I started by blowing up 12″ balloons about half full. The bigger you blow the balloons, the more yarn you’ll need. But the smaller you blow them, the more egg-like the shape will be.

Cut out about 21 pieces of yarn about 36 inches long. I have a table that’s exactly 36″ wide, so I used the table top to roughly measure. If you make your pieces of yarn too much longer than that, they’ll get tangled when you soak them in the glue.

Tie one of the pieces of yarn to the end of the balloon. Open one of your kitchen cabinets and hang the balloon from the handle. It’s way easier (and cleaner) than trying to manipulate the balloon when it’s lying on a flat surface.

Pour the glue into a small bowl. It takes about one full 2-ounce bottle of glue per yarn pumpkin. I added three bottles into the bowl at a time just to make it easier.

Dunk one of the pieces of yarn into the bowl of glue, and swirl it around gently with a plastic fork to get it completely covered with glue.

Hold the end of the piece of yarn with your fingers, then gently run it between the tines of a fork to remove the excess glue. I found that running it through the fork left enough glue on the yarn that it held its shape once it dried, but not so much glue that it was dripping everywhere.

I tried running the yarn through my fingers to “pinch” off the excess glue, but it took off nearly all the glue and made the yarn ball very soft once it dried. The fork method worked way better.

Take the glue covered yarn strand and press the end down somewhere and wind it around the balloon, making sure the press down the ends of the yarn to secure them when they’re in place. Repeat with the remaining pieces of yarn. When you’re done, find somewhere to hang the yarn covered balloons to dry.

Make a very small hole in the balloon close to where the knot is (it won’t pop if you cut it near the knot). You want the air to leak slowly so you can detach any yarn that you might have missed as it shrinks. Then pull the deflated balloon out through one of the openings in the yarn.

Make the pipe cleaner stem and vine by wrapping the pipe cleaners around your baby finger. The stem is just a spiral, so I tucked the end of the pipe cleaner into the yarn. I didn’t glue it on, I just tucked it in and it stayed in place.