You always see on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok how these people get these lavish, elaborately planned and laid out engagement proposals from their significant others. Some of them might be less elaborate than others, but the planning is there and it is absolutely one of the sweetest things you might see in your lifetime, even if you see multiple versions. It sometimes gives you ideas of what you might want or want to do.
My boyfriend’s daughter sent me a text one day asking if I’d be able to do her a favor. She decided she was going to propose to her girlfriend and asked if I could put words on some decorative pumpkins she bought at Target. She had three of them and wanted them to have three specific sayings on them: “V-ever” (5-ever, but with the roman numeral), “will you marry me?” and “be mine”. Super cheesy, but at the same time, super cute.
So I agreed. I had just shipped off all of my extra art supplies (basically all of them) to California to a longtime friend who decided she wanted to go to art school. At the time I was working and figured she could use the things more than I could—after all, I had been out of undergrad for several years at this point and most of the supplies sat unused.
However, now that I wasn’t working, it would be an extra expense for me to get the paints for this project. She offered to pay for them, but seeing as I’d be keeping the paints, I decided to just make it rain on Hobby Lobby and go get what I needed plus some.
I remember buying white and silver and black acrylic (along with ultramarine blue, canary or cadmium yellow—can’t remember, and some sort of “real red”) to paint the pumpkins. Small tubes is all, as the pumpkins were white and I didn’t need to gesso them or anything.
I started with sketches (that I no longer have) and sent them to her for approval. I did this for each pumpkin. When all was good, I mapped out the pumpkins with graphite and sent her photographs of those as well. With the thumbs up, I began applying the paint. Part of me wanted to etch the surface so the paint would grab. However, I was also afraid I’d ruin the pumpkin, so I just took a chance and left the pumpkin’s surface alone.
I sent photos of the first pumpkin—it was OK, but the silver was very, very flat. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure entirely what I was expecting. Luckily, I had some glitters on hand (silver and white iridescent craft, as well as some cosmetic grade ones, if need be). I started mixing in the iridescent glitters, and while it looked great, the consistency became very dry. After a few minutes of adjusting ratios and even introducing water into the mix, I got a consistency I could work with.
I thought painting these things would be easy, but I wasn’t getting an opaque result with just one coat, and now that I’ve changed the consistency of the paint, wasn’t getting the coverage I’d normally get. These pumpkins ended up taking me a couple of days to knock out, but in the end they were worth it. She loved them and said she would pick them up from her dad’s when it was the day of the proposal.
Fast forward—she ended up changing her proposal plans and did something that included her now fiancée’s two sons. The pumpkins were never used and we’re coming up on the one year anniversary of what should have been their engagement in a month. In fact, the 19th day of this month is when I started working on the pumpkins. It’s taken me a year to get this blog post up because I was waiting for the pumpkins to be used! But it’s the perfect time now since we’re already into fall and ‘tis the season, right?
In hindsight, I should have painted the words on with black first. Let it dry, then apply the silver. And if it needed more glitz, apply a layer of clear or something, and sprinkled on the glitter. Instead, what I concocted ended up being thick and difficult to paint on, so I ended up dabbing it on to keep the opacity. They didn’t come out bad, but they weren’t my best works of art. Oh well, I’ll do better next time! (Anyone need engagement pumpkins painted?)
