Front Porch Party

I am happy to be joining Debra today at Common Ground for a Front Porch Party.
Please go over and view all of the wonderful decorating happening at her site.

Here is the arrangement I started with for the porch.  But all good things must be rearranged!  I show how I put the wreaths in the white planter here.   I have added spiderwebs and fake spiders.

I have been wanting to make a pumpkin topiary so I decided to try one for the porch.

First, I created an urn to put it on.  I spray painted two terra cotta pots with a textured spray paint and then I aged it with a glaze.  I really would love to have some urns for the front porch, but they are expensive!  So I just made these.  I already had all of the materials.  I hot glued these together.  One on top of the other as shown in planters below.

I did the same thing to make this large urn.  Free planters from family, I then spray painted, and then glazed them so they looked more like stone.  These were so large I had two holes drilled in the bottom of them and tied them together with screws and a nut, just so they don't topple over.   In this photo I am half way done glazing.  This is Valspar glaze in mocha. 

 So, I really wanted to gild my pumpkins in gold.  I have seen this done in several ways.  Martha dips pumpkins in some big tub of water with the gold floating on top.  Some people have used metallic glaze.  But, after buying that glaze for a furniture project I realized it was expensive too!  So I came up with a much easier way to gild pumpkins.  Spray paint them with gold spray paint and wipe it off real fast with a paper towel.  It works great!

See, a gilded pumpkin!    The can of spray paint will go to good use through December with Christmas right around the corner.

To make a topiary I use these bamboo skewers from the grocery store.  They might be too weak for a larger pumpkin and if that is the case dowel rods will do the job.

So here is my topiary.

I put it on the porch, but it was too cute for outside.  So, I brought it back in.

This is how I first arranged it.

The spiderweb wreath post is here.   This is a really inexpensive wreath too.  I tell you what it cost in that post.

Here is the final arrangement.  

I liked layering it all the way to the ground.  More arranged on the left side than the right side.  We come and go from the house on the right side so it would just get knocked off.

Please go over to Common Ground and visit all of the front porch links for much more inspiration!  Debra is also having a tablescape party on Friday, October 29th.  Join her.

Don't forget to sign up for the $45 CSN gift certificate.  Click 

here  to enter!