Painted Glass Pumpkin Luminaries

I do not like to carve pumpkins. The one year I did it with the kids it was not a pretty result, the face or the following ant invasion and rot. Eww. Ever since that fateful Halloween, I've been taking the kids to a local pumpkin patch to pick out their own pumpkins to bring home and paint. I adore the way the decorated pumpkins adorn my front porch, but I miss the flickering glow of a jack-a-lantern. Now I miss it no more. Several weeks ago I came across this great project on Crafts by Amanda for Halloween Painted Jar Luminaries. Go look at them; they're awesome. 

That same week I found a bevy of floral glass vases for one dollar each at a local thrift store. When I saw their shape I thought they'd make great pumpkins.

Ooops, I didn't have orange paint and in my haste to get started I tried to make orange. I failed. However, these will not be wasted. I'm setting them aside for Christmastime to finish painting as ornament luminaries.

Instead of going back to the thrift store, I headed to Hobby Lobby. They had the same vases for only 50¢ because of the current glassware sale! Excellent.

I grabbed eight this time...and a bottle of orange paint. The orange paint is much better. I only applied one coat so the light will shine through well from the candles. I made sure to finish each vase with parallel brush strokes from top to bottom to imitate the vertical ribs on real pumpkins.

After the orange paint dried, I added brown along the fluted rim for the pumpkin stems. The brown dried fast, and the kids were enjoying a late, fall night outside with their neighborhood friends so I grabbed a goblet of wine and my black paint and did the faces freehand the same night. In hindsight, I shouldn't have trusted my end-of-day-tired-post-glass-of-wine creativity and should've printed out some sample faces online.

A quick spray the next day with a clear gloss sealer and...

...the shiny glass pumpkin luminaries are done.

I could not have eight twinkling jack-o-lanterns in my yard for less money.