How to Make a DIY Brass Pumpkin
I’ve found a gap in the decorative pumpkin market (gasp!), so today we are remedying that and I’ll show you how to create a DIY Brass Pumpkin.
Move over, sweater pumpkins!
This brass pumpkin is going to take over the world!
What?!? It could happen.
Here’s how to DIY a Brass Pumpkin:
DIY Brass Pumpkin Step #1: Start with a rectangle of thin brass sheeting.
Thin brass sheeting is available from Amazon. Once you buy a roll of this stuff, you’ll be hooked. It’s a gateway to all sorts of crafting shenanigans. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I purchased this particular roll of brass sheeting. It is 1000mm long, 100mm wide, and .1mm thick.
100mm is just shy of 4 inches, so I used that as the width for my rectangle. No need to make extra cuts!
I arbitrarily selected 13 inches for the length of my rectangle, but that was because I had 13 inches left on the end of a roll after using this brass sheeting to make brass leg tips.
If you DIY a brass pumpkin, your dimensions don’t have to exactly match mine. It’s the proportions that you are going for. We need a rectangle, not a square.
DIY Brass Pumpkin Step #2: Cut the brass rectangle into strips.
To recap, my rectangle is 4 inches wide by 13 inches long.
You now need to lay your rectangle out flat and, using scissors, cut the rectangle into strips about 1/2-inch wide. Be sure to leave about 3 inches (this will be the pumpkin stem) at the top that is uncut.
See the below photo for a reference as to how it should look.
The brass might be a bit sharp, so be careful when cutting it and consider wearing gloves.
DIY Brass Pumpkin Step #3: Punch holes into the stem.
Now we need to work on shaping and securing the pumpkin stem!
If you are great at soldering, you could solder the stem shut. I’m still a beginner, so I opted for a different method using the humble hole punch and brass paper fasteners.
Roll the stem into a cylinder shape so that the strips of brass that will form the body of the pumpkin roll up toward the stem. The sides of your stem need to overlap slightly.
Either eyeball it or use a permanent marker to make a dot where you want to punch your holes. My hole punch would only go through one layer of brass at a time.
The holes you punch just need to be big enough for the tines of a paper faster to slip through. See below for how it should look:
Please note that a heart-shaped hole punch is not a requirement for this project, but I can now say this brass pumpkin was made with love. So. Much. Love.
DIY Brass Pumpkin Step #4: Secure the stem with paper fasteners.
After all of the holes on the stem are punched and lined up, you can slip your paper fasteners in.
It might be a tight fit, but you should be able to reach a finger into the open top of the stem to spread apart the paper fastener’s tines (or whatever you call those bendy things).
How many paper fasteners you use is up to you. As long as it secures the stem shut and you like how it looks, you’re golden!
When you look at the completed pictures at the bottom of this post, you’ll see that one of my pumpkins ended up with 6 paper fasteners on the stem and the other only has two!
Keep in mind that the brass strips will be secured to the stem and depending on the placement of your paper fasteners, one of them might end up being in the way. If this happens, you can always just take out one of the paper fasteners.
DIY Brass Pumpkin Step #5: Trim off the overlapping strips.
Now flip your brass pumpkin upside down.
Because the sides of the stem needed to overlap to secure it, you’ll also end up with one or two brass strips overlapping each other.
This will cause you a headache later, so trim off any brass strips that are overlapping. See the below photo for a diagram of which strips to trim.
DIY Brass Pumpkin Step #6: Solder the brass strips to the stem.
The last step is to solder your brass strips to the pumpkin stem.
My not-so-technical description is that soldering is a technique whereby two pieces of metal are bonded together by melting solder in-between them.
I had NEVER soldered before this project, so if I can figure it out, you can too.
I purchased this soldering kit from Amazon that includes all I needed to get started with soldering. It was around $15.
I was completely intimidated at first to learn this new task, but then I watched some YouTube videos and developed enough over-confidence to tackle this project.
Of course, then came the humility from having to actually do it myself, but I got the job done! It might not look pretty, but my pumpkin is holding together!
Who knows what I’ll solder next since I’m now the soldering “expert” in the family.
I’m sure you can McGuyver a better setup of how to hold your brass strip in place to solder it onto the stem. I used a wrench elevated on some dishes and with a little maneuvering, it got the job done.
Along with the length of your brass strips, where you position and solder them on the stem will also determine how big your pumpkin will be.
If soldering seems like too heavy of a lift for you, you could always try affixing the brass strips to the pumpkin stem with additional paper fasteners. I think it is possible but would just take some planning to get the holes punched in just the right spot on the stem AND on the brass strips.
Let’s see how my finished brass pumpkins turned out!
Aren’t they cute?
Please note: Both of these pumpkins started out with the same dimensions: a 4-inch x 13-inch strip of brass.
The bigger pumpkin is bigger because of where I positioned the brass strips on the stem. I made the loops a bit bigger, so the tail end of the brass strip is what I soldered to the stem. I thought this looked a little messy and tried to cover over all of those ends with a brass band. Whether or not that worked is up for debate.
The smaller pumpkin is smaller because I made the loops smaller. The ends of the brass strip dovetail into the bottom of the pumpkin where it rests on the table. Instead of soldering the end of the brass strip to the stem, I soldered the middle of the brass strip to the stem. I hope that makes sense!
If not, I saved a highlight on my Instagram stories titled “Halloween.” I recorded each step of the process and explained the method to my madness. Sometimes a video does a better job than pictures.
The smaller pumpkin’s stem is shorter because I just trimmed it to be shorter and gave it a curved detail with my scissors to make it extra fancy.
PHEW!
This brass pumpkin tutorial ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated, but that’s what happens when I try to be thorough. If you have questions, please let me know.
This DIY stretched me creatively and skill-wise. From my first to my second pumpkin, my skills definitely improved. Imagine if I had made a third or a thirtieth?
I’m so happy I gave this DIY a try and I hope you’ll try it too. If you do, please let me know by commenting here or by tagging me on social media. You can email me too via the contact page on this website.
P.S. If you’re still not convinced that you want to start working with brass, but like the shape of these pumpkins, I have an alternative. This DIY Brass Pumpkin was modeled off of some paper pumpkins I used to make. If paper and hot glue or tape are more your jam, check out that tutorial here.
Products Used in This DIY Brass Pumpkin Tutorial:
Hole Punch (Of course I linked the heart-shaped one!)
*affiliate links in this blog post*
Thank you for being here today! Here are some other posts you might like that aren’t nearly as involved as this one!
Halloween Cauldron Centerpiece Using Grocery Store Flowers
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