My Fall Horse Shoe Pumpkin

Fall Horse Shoe Pumpkin

I actually made this before Halloween, but loved it so much that I decided to keep it up through Thanksgiving.

This horseshoe pumpkin turned out great considering what I started with.

My daughter rides so she was able to get me these horse shoes. 

They were quite rusted, dirty and most of them still had the nails in them. I was sanding and cleaning and feeling like I was getting nowhere. 

The dirt was really embedded in the groves. My neighbor came to my rescue. He had this sander that had a wire attachment for it. It saved the day and my hands.
 
It's hard to believe that these are the same horse shoes I used in this pumpkin. I removed the nails and then took the wire brush to them. They cleaned up nicely. I was even able to get all of the dirt out of the groves.

I have seen these horseshoe pumpkins painted orange and I thought that was what I was going to do. However, once I had them all cleaned up and put together, I liked the natural look of the horse shoes, so no paint. Just sprayed them with clear lacquer. 

My neighbor is a welder so he welded the horse shoes for me.

We cut off a part of  a horseshoe to make the pumpkin stem.
I added a couple of the metal leaves I had from another project. Remember my bottle garland? You can see it here. Then I added some old springs around the stem.

I added my Mr. and Mrs. Scare crows to this vignette. They are so cute and they always make me smile.

My old scale and some fall flowers finish this side of the vignette. The sun was so bright while I was taking these pictures. A little too much natural light!

In the background below, you can see an old fan. This one is from my grandmother. She use to have this one in church. Back then there was no such thing as air conditioning so they had these fans. I have a couple of them but there are many out there. 

Most of them had some type of scene on them, this one was a country scene. It starts out folded up. Not sure if you can see the little tabs near the top. You would use them to open the fan.

I am not sure about this, but I think that funeral places also had these. 

 The church and covered bridge are starting to appear.

 Here is the fan completely opened up.

I actually like the fact that I can use this pumpkin for Halloween and through Thanksgiving.  I am so pleased at how it turned out.

   

The post  My Fall Horse Shoe Pumpkin first appeared on Eclectic Red Barn.

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