DIY Chinoiserie Chic Mini Pumpkins

Like to Doodle? You Can Create A Beautiful Fall Decor Piece For Your Home

Okay so I have a long, long love affair with Asian style design, art, and porcelain pieces. Hence my blog name. And my overflowing china cabinets. 🙂 Chinoiserie Chic is a huge trend right now in home decor, and honestly it’s enough to make me want to redo my whole house.

But for today, I’m going to settle for four mini pumpkins. I love creative projects, and I have to say, this one really brought me joy to work on and I’m so happy with the results. Even with their imperfections, the pumpkins are unique works of art that were created by me.

This is a super low-stress project. Just get a few pumpkins, some really good fine tip permanent markers, some inspiration from your china dishes or a quick google search of chinoiserie prints, and spend a couple of hours creating. So de-stressing and relaxing! The only downside to my pumpkins is I made mine out of real mini white pumpkins and now I’m wishing I had used artificial white pumpkins so I could have kept these through Thanksgiving and for next year!

If you want to try this project, I recommend you consider buying some small pumpkins, spray painting them with chalk paint, doing your marker design, and then sealing them. That way you will have them for years to come, unlike me who will have to say goodbye to my little pumpkins in a few weeks.

Here are the step by step instructions for creating these little beauties.

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Supply List

Pumpkins

White Chalk Paint

Krylon Clear Finish

Bic Ultra Fine Tip Permanent Markers

Select your small white pumpkins. See my previous note about using artificial pumpkins.
If you are using real pumpkins, seal them with polyurethane or another sealer first so that you have a nice smooth surfact to work on.
If you are using artificial pumpkins, spray them with white chalk paint.
Allow to dry thoroughly. I waited for a day before I started on my design.
Decide on what designs you want to use. I made two pumpkins inspired by hydrangea and chrysanthemum motifs similar to some beautiful Asian-inspired wallpaper I saw online. I made one based on a traditional cherry tree painting, and one taking its design elements from blue willow china.

Churchhill Blue Willow Dishware

4. Using a fine tip marker in a color you would like to have throughout your design, draw the basic elements. I used this wonderful set of fine tip markers which gave me a huge variety of colors to work with. The great thing about the Asian motifs I used is that they are fairly simple–geomentric shapes, curved lines, flowers, and leaves. I used a brown marker for the outlines on two of them and the black for the blossom branch design. For the blue willow design I only used a couple of the shades of blue.

5. Once you have a rough outline, go back and fill in with the colors you want in your design.

6. Look back over the design and see where it could use some depth. Use another color to add a bit to some sections. For example, on some of my light green leaves, I added some purple.

7. Spray the pumpkins with a light coat of sealer.

That’s it! Such a fun project! Easier than I thought and great results! I hope you will give it a try and let me know how yours turned out and post your picture!