[Make] Grocery Bag Pumpkin

Before BYOB (bring your own bags) became the norm, I accumulated a huge stash of market paper bags. Last fall I made a painted leaf garland with them.  This year I wanted to make a bigger dent in my stash and decided that a 3-dimensional paper bag pumpkin would be just the project to do that.

Click "Read more" for the tutorial

3-Dimensional Paper Bag Pumpkin

What you'll need:

16 paper grocery bags (will make 125 pumpkin cutouts)
sharp scissors
stapler
strong glue (I used tacky glue)
pen (to draw your 1/2 pumpkin template)

Make a 1/2 pumpkin template.

this one measures 3.5 in x 5.5 in

Using the sides of the bag, cut out your pumpkins. I was able to get 8 pumpkins out of one bag (I was going for 10, but the bottom of the bag was too thick)

Since the bag is doubled up on the sides, you'll be able to get 2 pumpkins from one cut...

Double check your pumpkin shape.  Make sure that the center of the pumpkin goes up and is not too rounded or else it'll wobble when it is in 3D form.

Continue cutting your bags. When you have 5 pumpkins, layer each inside each other and staple together at the center seam.

I used 3 staples down the center for each set of 5.

 Continue cutting pumpkin shapes and stapling sets of 5 until you have 25 stapled sets (around 16 bags)... This took me about 2 hours but I was interrupted several times and was playing around with other ideas, so my guess is that it'll be quicker for you!

After you're done cutting and stapling, it's time to glue!  Place glue at the center seam of the pumpkin...

Keep gluing down layers until all 25 sets are glued together.  

 

Then throw a heavy book on top and let it dry overnight.

Once the glue is dry, it's time to see what the pumpkin will look like in 3D form!  First, glue together the final section of the pumpkin.

Then open up your pumpkin and glue the two ends together. To help bond it together, clamp the newly glued section at the bottom...

 and at the top...

When it's dry, remove the clamp and fluff out your paper pumpkin...

You can leave your 3D Paper Pumpkin as is...

For size perspective, this pumpkin measures 7-inches wide by 5.5-inches tall.

 Or you can glitz it up with some spray paint and glitter...

I'll be back later to show pics of my glitzed-up paper bag pumpkin!

Happy Monday, hope you're having a great start to the week!