For this Instructable, I will showing you how to make a painted baseball pumpkin. This is perfect for a fall project since the baseball playoffs are going to start, then comes the World Series. If you are like me I like to go to the pumpkin patch and pick some pumpkins then carve them or paint them. This year I will paint one for the first time and do it and show you a step by step way to do that.

Supplies

Pumpkin, white paint, red puffy paint, soap, water, cloth, pencil, and paper plate.

Step 1: Get a Pumpkin

Travel to the nearest or farthest pumpkin patch. I tried to find a smaller size pumpkin but not too small so that it would be more fun to paint.

Step 2: Wash the Pumpkin

Grab your pumpkin and wash it with water and soap. Take a cloth and wash away any dirt. Rinse the pumpkin with clean water. Use cool water as hot water would make the pumpkins skin soft.

Step 3: Let the Pumpkin Dry in a Safe Clean Place

Drying the pumpkin is important. If the pumpkin stays wet it will start to make the outer edge age faster causing a soft pumpkin which will not last. So dry your pumpkin with a soft dry towel making sure to go over the pumpkin several times making sure it is dry. Leave the pumpkin to air dry for a couple hours.

Step 4: Start Painting!

Baseball's are white as a base color. So I used a white paint used to paint for crafts. You could probably use any white paint available but I choose a paint I already had at home. Painting the pumpkin so it completely covers take a few coats. Once you apply one coat, let it dry. Continue to keep adding coats of white paint until the desired coverage is what you like. Just make sure after each additional coat you allow drying time.

Step 5: Painting the Stitches

Once the pumpkin is completely dry you can start to apply the red paint for the stitches for the baseball. I used a paper plate as my template so my lines would be "kind of straight." Using the edge of the plate, hold it up against the pumpkin so you can follow the paint tip along the plate to paint on your first line of the baseball where the stitches will go. This will look like a half moon or a half of a circle on your pumpkin on the side of it. Continue to do this for both sides of the pumpkin. Please let this red line dry because it will smear when adding on the rest of the stitching of your baseball.

Step 6: Applying the Final Stitches

In your final step of making your pumpkin look like a baseball, you will need those special looking stitches that make it look more like it was sewn together with those final stitches. Once the straight lines are completely dry, start on one side of your pumpkin at one of your lines. Lets choose the left side. Starting at the bottom, make your first stitch. I used red puffy cloth paint made for shirts to make a small line at an angle. This type of paint is easy to use to make smaller things on anything you try to paint. When making your first angle stitch, angle your paint line diagonal one way, then add another one the other way. Making slash like lines meeting in the middle of each other. We want to try to make these little stitches somewhat the same size and the same amount of distance apart from one another. Do this all along that same line, all the way around the pumpkins side. When starting the other side you want to also start at the bottom but make your small stitches go the opposite direction. So make the small red paint angle the other way. Continue to keeping adding the stitches and try to make them as the same distance apart. Allow to dry.

Step 7: Final Product

As you can see our pumpkin is now looking more like a baseball. Hope you enjoyed my project. It was not only fun but it was easy to make and display as a fall porch decoration.