i was racking my brain trying to come up with a halloween craft that I hadn’t already seen. there are only so many things you can do with cheesecloth and paint. i bought a bunch of miniature pumpkins and figured i’d wing it. then, in the back of a drawer, I found my puffy paint. my original idea was to paint weird scary limp bizkit faces with the puffy paint but soon realized blood was the easiest and prettiest (in a violent creepy way) to go.

i loooove horror movies. but when I was too young to see it, I watched hellraiser 3 and there was this scene at a nightclub where pinhead killed everyone but there was this statue on the wall of a woman’s arm squeezing a heart and blood comes out. that scene messed me up. anyway, painting these totally reminded me of that scene!

step one . paint them white! (unless you buy white pumpkins and save yourself a step.) they don’t have to be perfect and i seriously didn’t bother trying too hard. i did end up doing two light coats on each.

step two . the paint from the top down each crease. vary the lengths and you can round out the ends by going back up a tad with your bottle once you’ve reached the point where you want the drip to stop. let dry for four hours. and you’re done!!!

they make a really fun weird centerpiece. definitely a conversation piece. you’ll have conversations such as “why are your mini pumpkins bleeding?”

another pro of this DIY? the cats have not been interested in going near them. hell yeah. you got cats? make these.