An Autumn Project

When you're stuck inside watching the rain pour upon the already soaking wet ground, you begin to wonder what you're going to do all winter long. Today it didn't stop raining once, and my daily walk was pushed aside hour by hour until it got to dark to walk - all because it poured.

So instead of continuing to sit at the window, feeling like singing, 'Rain, Rain, go away, come again some other day' my sister and I decided to do a Autumn project to help with the fall decorating. And, lucky for you, I thought I would take pictures of the process so that you could do it too! Thus, I introduce to you, the pumpkin made out of left over canning rings! =)

The size of the banners forced me to make them this small. Please feel free to click this and all of the following pictures to see them up close

In the summer you can your pickles and use the canning rings to hold the sealing lid on, but the next year or the following winter, you take the rings off and they get tossed in a drawer. Then next summer they have either rusted or dented and are no longer safe to use for actual canning - you can use them every once in awhile on a jar, but for the most part your draw slowly fills up. Fills up with pretty much useless, dented, rusted, canning rings. So here is a wonderfully easy way to use them up and help decorate your house for Fall!


The suggestion we found on the internet was to use 20 rings, but to save a couple for Mother's use we used 18 instead. We now half wish we would have used 20, to fill in a couple gaps, but I really think it doesn't matter. So anywhere from 18 - 20 will work fine.

1.) Gather 18-20 rings.

You will next need a medium size of cardboard, that you can get covered in paint and not shed tears for; a paint brush, rough or smooth doesn't matter much but I like the rougher type; and orange paint. I use Acrylic Paint, it's nice for wood, and rock surfaces (we used to paint rocks with it) and I figured it would work fine on metal. The only problem I came across is, it scrapes off very easily after it's dried. I don't know if that's because we only did one layer (we wanted the textured look of the metal underneath) or if this paint was simply not made for metal. *shrugs* The scraped paint look will only add to the textured, antique look. =D I don't have any suggestions of what other paint to use, though, so I suppose you'll just have to do some research about other paint, if you would rather not use this kind. =) 

  2.) Gather together a paint brush, a section of cardboard, and orange paint.

After squirting a small amount of paint onto your cardboard (or into a paint tray, if you have one or aren't to lazy to look for the one you're sure you have somewhere) simply start painting your rings! The section of paint I have on the brush below, covered the entire outside of the ring, so not much is needed. We did one coat, as I said before, to give it a textured look, but if you would like you can do two. =) I also did not paint the inside of the ring. You won't be able to see it for the most part and it saves paint + energy + time. But again, you can do it if you would like to.

3.) Paint all of your rings

Then comes the hardest part - waiting for them to dry. =) Its so hard when you want to assemble it right then and there! I suggest you clean up everything while you wait (and do laundry, and clean the entire house.. haha, just kidding) We gave it a couple hours to dry since we had other stuff to get done so how long you wait is up to you! At least and hour would be good though. We had a piece of plastic that had been used in packaging, which we spread our rings all over to dry. You could use plastic, or cardboard whichever works. However it would be good to have something for them to be on - the paint tends to leave traces.

4.) Let all of the rings dry, until dry to the touch.

This next step we forgot to take pictures of, but it's extremely easy. Take all your rings and string them onto the string making sure they are all going in the right direction. Or in other words have the lips of the rings going in the same direction. Hopefully you know what I mean because I'm not sure how else to explain it! =) Then once you get that, tie them together very tight. As tight as you can. =) Look at the picture below real quick; I wound it about a couple times to give it more strength. And if the rings are all slightly overlapped then it works better. Oh, and if it's slightly loose, nor worries, I've got the solution to your problem. But first, step five.
 

5.) Tie all of your rings together very tightly using any type of string or yarn.

After they are tied together, tug and push them around until they are all evenly spread apart. Then, take two cinnamon sticks (or one if it's extra thick or if your hole is extra small - mine required two sticks) and push them gently into the center.

6.) Arrange them evenly by pulling them apart and pushing them together; gently push two cinnamon sticks into the center of your beautiful pumpkin to give it a stem!

And that is it! So simple! Put them on your table with fake leaves and candles to create a fun, artsy, and extremely cheap Fall table arrangment. 

7.) Enjoy them!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial in how to create a lovely pumpkin and how to pass a rainy day. =) I had a lot of fun doing it - even if I was deprived of my walk. 

Oh! And I was thinking of combining a bunch of fall spices (nutmeg, Cinnamon, etc) and putting it in a tool bag, and then putting it into the pumpkin, resulting into a very fall smelling pumpkin! So you could always try that. =D Candles are so cozy.

<3 Eva

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It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.

-George William Curtis