I've Got My Eye On You: The Eyeball Pumpkin

After over-seeing the cleaning and carving of the sons’ four huge pumpkins, I didn’t want to see anymore pumpkin guts. It looked like I’d been through a war, like I had personally massacred an entire pumpkin patch. It was a mess! But, we all had a blast, so all the debris was worth it. For my pumpkins, I decided to hit up Pinterest and find something equally creative, but less invasive, to do. When I saw the idea for the eyeball pumpkin, I knew I’d found ‘the one’.

This pumpkin is really easy to make and didn’t require any kind of template. I ‘eyeballed’ the different sections as I painted. All the neighbors have loved the giant ‘eye’, and the sons got a tickle out of it since I’m always reminding them that I do, in fact, have my eye on them!

1 medium-large pumpkin
acrylic paint: black, light blue, white, and red
paint brushes
paper plate or other flat disposable surface to squirt paint out onto

Directions

Using warm, soapy water thoroughly wash the outside of your pumpkin gently scrubbing to remove and dirt or mud.
Begin by painting the outside of the pumpkin white. ‘Eyeball’ the top of your pumpkin and stop when you’ve reached the area where you’d like iris to start.
Here is our pumpkin drying after its second coat of white paint. It’s upside down which is why you can’t see the iris/pupil area. I painted the bottom so that when I set it on our porch I could sit it on it’s side.

4. After your pumpkin has completely dried begin painting the blue iris. Again, stop painting when you reach the area where you’d like the pupil to begin. My iris was a little over 2 inches wide. Let dry. If needed apply a second coat and let dry.

5. Paint the remaining circle of unpainted pumpkin black for the pupil, including painting the stem. Allow to dry completely.

6. Now you’re ready to get to the veins. Eew! But, man does it look cool. Paint red veins along the pumpkins natural segments. You can paint every segment, or alternate if your pumpkin has a ton of them, all close together.