Quick set Concrete Pumpkins

Over at Fox Hollow Cottage I spied a guest post from Shayna at The Wood Grain Cottage for some concrete pumpkins, and I knew right away I was gonna make some.  Using quick set concrete was right up my alley since I now have three little stone look walkways made over summer using the stuff.

Terracotta pumpkin, and thick foam light up pumpkin with his electrical removed

These are my first victims. The idea is to use hollow pumpkin shapes as a mold and pour the quick set concrete inside, let it harden for a couple days, and release the pumpkins into the wild.  The pumpkin on the far left was a test using a different technique with a regular plastic pumpkin.  It came out smooth and I wanted them to be crumbly looking like the ones Shayna made. 

 You have to seal the eyes, nose and mouth so the cement doesn't ooze out.  I used plastic wrap and white duct tape on the foam one, and just the white duct tape on the terracotta one.  The instructions were to spray the inside with cooking spray, which I only did on one because I forgot, and I was glad  - more on that under tips.

As you can see I have three plastic pails, one terracotta and one foam pumpkin.  All picked up from garage sales for free or .25¢.  No more than that, because those pail ones are only a buck at the Dollar Store 'ya know!

Mix up your quick set cement in a bucket, add water till you get a thick consistency, not as thick as peanut butter, and not as runny as... as... ummm, I don't know, not as runny as something runny, but still pourable.

Mix it with what ever you have.  

I have a man with a mixer on a drill, so I used that technique.

 

He also had a plastic McDonalds cup in his truck so I used that too.  I'm lovin' it.

Pour the cement into the pumpkin molds.

Add stems if you want.  I wanted too on the ones that had an open top.

The pumpkin on the right was an attempt to see how it would turn out if the plastic pail face features were reversed - sticking out.  The end result was not flattering for that one.

 This little guy was fun to crack open.  I hatched a pumpkin baby!

But I knocked off his eyes and nose, so had to glue them back on.

 This is a flat top, the one from the foam pumpkin. 

Pail face from a pumpkin pail.  

All of the ones shown are before I used a top secret coloring recipe on them.  Shayna's pumpkins are a'la natural, and I love 'em, but I wanted mine to have some shading to make them sort of primitive looking since I already have a lot of concrete around.

Tips:

Don't spray the inside of the pumpkins if you are going to use any color on them.  The cooking spray acts like a water barrier and you will need to give your pumpkin a bath to wash off his oil.  Now that I think about it, I didn't spray more than one and nothing stuck, so I don't know if it's really needed or not, could depend on what sort of pumpkins you start out with as a mold.

I used only the quick set concrete.  The original recipe called for some perlite and sphagnum peat moss.  I didn't have any and I'm not sure if that is good or bad.

The other tip I have is actually for any made from the plastic pails.....the instructions called for clipping or cutting the pumpkins out of their shell all the way around.  If you make one nice slice from top to bottom with a razor blade you can take the pumpkin out and use the mold again.  All you need to do is duct tape the one slice back together and it's good to make another one.

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