Decorate with Glittery Mini Pumpkins

What You Need:

• Assorted glitter (regular kids’ craft glitter is fine)
• Craft glue (like Mod Podge)
• Medium width paintbrush
• Several sheets of newspaper or brown paper grocery bags
• 3 or more mini pumpkins and/or gourds (varying the shapes and sizes creates more visual interest)

What You Do:

1. Spread newspaper or brown paper bags over your work surface.
2. Work with one color of glitter at a time so that the various colors don’t get mixed up, unless you want to create multi-colored pumpkins (those are pretty too!). Pick colors that your child doesn’t necessarily recognize, and talk about them together. Casually introduce a couple of new vocabulary words if possible, such as “iridescent,” “sparkly,” “translucent,” or “crystal.”
3. Pour about ¼ cup of glitter onto the newspaper in a pile for each pumpkin you want to coat.
4. Ask your child to dip the paintbrush into the craft glue and paint an even layer of glue all around one of the pumpkins, leaving the underside unpainted.
5. Then, have her roll the sides of the pumpkin in the glitter. Once your child has coated the pumpkin as much as possible this way, fill in any gaps by sprinkling and gently patting the glitter down onto the exposed areas of glue. When the pumpkin is completely covered with glitter, set it aside and allow it to dry completely.
6. Return any unused glitter to its original container and discard the newspaper (or wipe it down completely so that no leftover glitter remains).
7. Set up your workspace again, pouring a new color of glitter into a pile on a new sheet of newspaper. Repeat steps 1-6 until all of your pumpkins are coated in glitter.
8. After all of the pumpkins have dried, arrange them on a platter with fall colored leaves (faux or real ones), berries, and other festive foliage you might have in your backyard or garden. Adding a few pillar candles of different heights can also add a beautiful aesthetic element and warmth to your table.

If you don't want to coat the pumpkins in glitter, you can draw glitter designs on them instead. Paint your desired design—a pattern of shapes, say, or a jack-o-lantern face—on your pumpkin using the glue, then pour glitter over it. For very young kids, you can also use cereal in place of the glitter.