TOP 5 TIPS FOR PUMPKINS 🎃

Hey guys welcome back to my channel. Today's video is all about pumpkin tips. So starting with how to make your fake pumpkin look real. We are just going to take one of these carvable fake pumpkins that you can get at any craft store and I am going to age it. So all I'm doing is mixing some brown paint. It's one part brown paint to two parts water and I'm really just guessing right here. But mix it up and then you're going to just take sections of the pumpkin and you're going to paint stripes or whatever. Just paint sections at a time. Then you're going to take some kind of washcloth and you are just going to dab the brown paint off and you'll just continue with this technique. If it's drying too quickly you need to add more water. You want it to be a pretty watery consistency. This is basically how it's going to look. You really just kind of made it look like it's been sitting out with some dirt on it and I feel like it does make it look a lot more realistic than having that plastic shine on it. Okay for this next step we're basically going to do the opposite and we're going to make a real pumpkin look fake. But actually this is something I have been doing for years like the past 10 years with my pumpkins is using this clear glaze spray paint. You're just going to spray your pumpkin and it leaves this amazing glossy finish that stays glossy forever. It looks like it's wet almost but it's this is what it looks like when it's dry. So I usually do this to all of my pumpkins. I will spray them with this but every year I have people comment on the pumpkins that are on my porch and they're like why do your pumpkins just they look so different than mine sitting on my porch. So this is my secret weapon. This next tip is just taking any real pumpkins or fake pumpkins that you might have lying around and if you don't like the color of them we are going to give them a quick paint job. So I have one big orange pumpkin that I'm not a huge fan of the color and then I have a couple of these little bags of real pumpkin. So I'm using these two colors and I picked up this chalk paint at Walmart and I'm just going to give these each a couple of coats. Now you can definitely spray paint that would be quicker if you want to go for that. However the reason I like to do this hand painted is because the finished product makes it look more realistic. After I've done two coats and a few parts I'll do three coats. It looks more real because some of the original color is coming through and it's kind of streaky. That's actually the look that I'm going for. So to me it looks like it's more realistic. These big pumpkins are fake. Obviously the little ones are real but by having the orange come through it does help it look real. I'm just doing the same thing to this green and yellow pumpkin. I love the shape of this pumpkin but I really do not care for the color. My son actually asked if it was a watermelon. So I wanted this one to look you know that like peachy orange color. So that's what I went for and I think it looks amazing. It looks like that was the original color of this pumpkin. Okay the next tip I have for you is when you're picking real pumpkins out how you want to pick your pumpkins to make sure that they last as long as possible on your porch. So first things first this is our little pumpkin patch we have in our backyard. Once you've picked a pumpkin they will last between eight and twelve weeks as long as you don't carve them and as long as they are healthy pumpkins. So eight to twelve weeks obviously we're in the safe zone because Halloween is just like six weeks away from right now. So you're fine but there's a few things you want to be looking for when you're at a pumpkin patch or you're looking at pumpkins at the store. Number one is check for any soft spots or any rotted spots. I'm showing you right here what a rotted spot would look like. Obviously this pumpkin will rot a lot quicker because there's some holes and some dings and some nasty things on it but you also want to check for soft spots. The next thing you want to do is just make sure that your pumpkins once they are picked from the stem are not just sitting in direct sunlight. It will make them just wilt a lot quicker so keeping them in the shade will help them stay fresh longer. And then another tip with these is you actually want to clean them when you bring them into the house. Clean all the dirt and all the mud off of your pumpkin that is really going to help it stay fresher longer as well. Okay and then the very last tip is how to save money with pumpkins and this will help for next year. When Halloween and Thanksgiving are all over do not just throw your pumpkins away. Scrape out the seeds and plant them in your garden for next year. That way you can get all your pumpkins for free next year and they will come from the seeds of the pumpkins that you purchased this year. Okay guys well that's everything for this video. Thank you so much for watching. I hope that you were able to get at least one helpful tip that will help you with pumpkins this year. If you have not yet hit that red subscribe button. Make sure that you do that and we will see you guys in the next video.