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Sunday, October 17, 2010

Dryer Vent Pumpkins

My godmother made these dryer vent pumpkins years ago and I had a couple of them and wanted to make some more for our house and for a gift for a friend. Back when she made the pumpkins, plastic dryer vent was used but now I believe that is some sort of fire hazzard so now it is aluminum. These were hers. And now I'll tell you how to make them.


I bought some 3 inch and 4 inch dryer vent duct for the project and I already owned paint, brushes, wire cutters, and a glue gun. I just experimented to see how long I needed to cut the dryer vent. When I made it into the pumpkin shape I would overlap some of the "wire" parts and make them fit inside each other because I did not want a really wide pumpkin and I liked them more round like my godmother's. This was not as successful with the 4 inch duct because it was much harder to overlap and get it to glue gun shut. If you click on the picture you can see what I mean by overlapping. I did get a tad frustrated trying to hold them and glue so a helper would be a good idea.


Some of my 4 inch ones popped apart and in the end only 1 of those survived. I added a few staples using a very small stapler just in case any others decided to pop apart.


I painted them all with dark green craft paint first so they would have some underlying color and look more like real pumpkins look. Then I painted over them with orange, white, and yellow craft paint for the top coat. Painted did take some time since I had to do a few coats and make sure no aluminum was showing through.


Then I hot glued some sticks that Eric found in the backyard and cut for me. I added a couple of leaves from the dollar store to each pumpkin with hot glue as well. I didn't end up tying rafia around them but you could.


You can see the green undertones well here.


Here they all are after I finished gluing! I sent the 3 on the left to one of my best friends as a gift.


I decided to put mine by the fireplace in a grouping. I think the yellow one is my favorite!


Mine aren't quite as nice as my godmother's because I think plastic would be much easier to work with but still not too shabby. This was a fairly easy (once you get a hang of the overlapping and gluing part) craft and definitely not many materials needed. The duct comes pretty long so you could make a lot of these (I still have plenty left). Let me know what you think!

18 comments :

  1. Your projects are amazing! You're so crafty!!

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  2. I wanted to answer your question. I don't have a Silhouette, but I've heard they cut freezer paper really well - just like the Cricut. You just don't want your pressure set as high as you would for vinyl. Good luck!

    Cheri

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  3. Well, aren't you the clever one. Those are really cool!

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  4. Those are great! We appreciate you stopping by and joining us for Anything Related!
    {*Rebekah*}

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  5. I'm visiting via Somewhat Simple =) These are simply one of the most creative pumpkins I've seen! Brilliant! I am going to try these next year for sure.

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  6. What a wonderful idea. So cute!!

    :)
    ButterYum

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  7. What a great idea, creative and resourceful. Thanks for sharing.

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  8. This is fantastic. They are adorable! I'd love for you to join my linky party this weekend!

    Krista
    whilehewasnapping.blogspot.com

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  9. Oh my gosh, that is very cool! Who would have thought to do that our of a dryer vent?!

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  10. these are so clever and adorable....and they won't rot on your hearth...always a bonus! popping over from tatertots and jello.

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  11. what a great idea! i love them! thanks for sharing!

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  12. How cool!

    I'm going to be featuring this over at Life As Lori if you would like to stop by and grab my I was featured button please do so!

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  13. That is so clever! Never would of thought of this! Thanks for sharing!

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  14. Very good blog post. I absolutely appreciate this website.

    Thanks!

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  15. Very good information. Lucky me I found your site by chance
    (stumbleupon). I've saved it for later!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Appreciate this post. Let me try it out.

    ReplyDelete

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