Make Your Own Pumpkin Mr Potato Head-Style

by Rhiannon
(Syracuse, NY)

Even here in central NY where the cities are surrounded by farmland, the price of pumpkins has been getting ridiculous.

They want $5-6 for one of those teeny, tiny gourds, $8-10 for something your small child might need two hands to pick up, and $15-20 for anything large enough to carve.

Our son, who is Autistic and currently five, really loved the idea of getting to make jack-o-lanterns, but my family was not in the financial position to splurge – and it really would be – that much on something so frivolous that gets, at best, a few nights of enjoyment.

So, I scanned the internet for a pattern for making a fabric pumpkin. Then I checked out the remnant bin of the fabric store for a discounted yard of orange fleece (not hard to find at this time of year), and anything that would serve well for making a stem.

A spool or two of thread to put it all together was the last thing I had to buy for the pumpkin itself, because I stuffed it with things like used-up dishrags, stockings with runs in them, and that sort of thing.

A little time with my sewing machine later, and I had a decent-sized, reusable, fabric pumpkin. The pumpkin won’t get carved, but every year, our son can decide what kind of face he wants it to have.

The trick borrows from the idea of Mr. Potato Head – different facial features and accessories are stored in small, dollar store bins along with the pumpkin, and can be attached to the fuzzy surface of the pumpkin by way of the prickly half of Velcro, that is attached to THEM.