I am completely head-over-heels with the industrial farmhouse look lately.

So, when I was decorating my front stoop, I wanted a little more than just your standard pumpkins and mums. My neighbor has some concrete pumpkins that I am absolutely in love with, but I also didn’t want to spend an exorbitant amount of money decorating the small area I do have (although, it will stay decorated this way until the day after Thanksgiving), and decent sized concrete pumpkins were starting out around $30.

I mean, yes. I could make my own, but I had some aluminum flashing leftover from two other projects I’m working on (both of which I think you’ll love!), so I thought I’d try my hand at using the scraps for some sort of industrial farmhouse-style pumpkins.

The first thing I did was measure out inch-wide strips from my leftover piece – which ended up being 25 inches long. However, you can purchase 1 inch galvanized metal strapping if you don’t have leftover metal flashing just laying around. You’ll need 4 strips for a pumpkin. I ended up having enough to make two pumpkins!

Which brings me to a very important fact about myself: I’m going to become a hoarder.

Hear me out. Years ago I had wanted to display my spices together all nicely in these round little metal spice containers with a magnetic back. I didn’t really have enough refrigerator space to house them, so I purchased a huge roll of metal flashing. HUGE. Then this metal flashing followed me to another house in Virginia. Then to Pennsylvania. Then to North Carolina. Never touched. Just another thing I had to pack up. So prior to moving back to Pennsylvania, I trashed it.

Then low and behold – I found two projects that I was dying to do that required metal flashing. And do you know how expensive that stuff is? Too much to be throwing away each time I decide it’s not needed anymore.

So: hoarder status I will obtain.

But I digress.

Next, I found the half-way point on each metal strip and marked it. I also marked 1 1/2 inches on each side.

I then took a piece of scrap wood, held the metal strapping down, and drilled a 9/16 inch hole into each marked area.

Then I headed to Home Depot for the rest of my supplies: a 1/2 inch threaded metal road, measuring 6 inches in diameter, three (3) 1/2 inch hex nuts, and a 1/2 inch t-nut. I took one of the hex nuts and threaded it about 1 inch onto the metal rod (as shown above).

Then I inserted the metal rod into the center holes on each strip and spread them evenly out. Once it looked like the photo above, I took another hex nut and threaded that one on tightly, ensuring the strips wouldn’t move around.

I threaded the third hex nut close to the top

Folded over all of the strips, inserting the rod into the holes at the end of each strip. Then I topped it off with the t-nut, making sure the bolt did not stick out past the t-nut since I wanted a flat surface for the pumpkin to sit.

I flipped the pumpkin over, and bent the top of the straps to give it more of a pumpkin shape.

I had a little bit of metal flashing left, so I found a pumpkin leaf print off online, printed it out, and traced it. If you are going the metal strip route, I’m sure some felt leaves, or burlap leaves, would look adorable.

I primed them and then painted them a leaf green from my paint stash. I also wrapped a bunch of jute twine around a wooden dowel for some vines and sprayed it with an embarrassing amount of hair spray. However, the spray did nothing.

So I took some floral wire and wrapped it around the jute twine instead. Then I wrapped those around the dowel to give it a twirly effect.

Then I cut the leaves out, used a hole punch to create holes on the stems, and took the leaves and pumpkins outside for a little black spray painting to give it this black speckled effect.

Once the metal pieces were dry, I sprayed everything with a clear seal. And when that was dry, I assembled everything. First, I removed the hex nut (the one that was placed an inch down on the metal rod), wrapped the wire twisted jute around the metal rod…

…and topped it with two leaves, before adding the hex nut back on.

Then it came to the stem.

At first I had no idea what I wanted to do. When I was at the hardware store, I picked up a pack of mini gourds and had one that was rotting. So I ripped the pumpkin stem off, painted it black, attempted to drill a hole in the bottom of it, and epically failed.

So, my second idea was to attempt to make a stem like I did with my plush pumpkins. I took the same jute twine that I used for the vines and began to wrap it around the hex nut and metal rod, hot gluing as I went up.

I finished the top by folding it over, and hot gluing it down.

Isn’t this seriously the cutest little pumpkin you ever did see?

I originally made them for outside, but they are a bit light, so when the wind kicks up, they need to be brought in. However, they make super cute indoor decor, too!

Now to finish up those other metal flashing projects!