If you’re looking for a fun way to celebrate All Saint’s Day with your Catholic kids, you have come to the right place! Check out all of my All Saints’ Day resources for families here. To make this adorable All Saint’s Day pumpkin (that requires no, I repeat NO artistic skill) read on, my friend. 🙂
Here’s a video explaining how to make the Saint-O-Lantern. It’s the same info that’s in this blog post, so devour it either way. Also, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see my newest Catholic craft videos! 🙂
Also, you should totally check out my All Saints’ Day food labels! This is the perfect All Saints’ Day party printable as it turns everyday kid snacks into symbols of the Saints, making celebrating a breeze for mom!
Materials Needed:
- Alphabet Saints Printable
- A Pumpkin (fake, real, orange, white, whatever. I do recommend a tall pumpkin if you want to fit the Saints and also the crayon drippings. If you use a fake pumpkin you can keep it forever as long as you store it somewhere climate controlled like a closet- not in the attic!)
- Mod Podge (Now available at the Dollar Tree. What?!)
- Foam Brush or other paint brush
- Crayons (old crayon nubs would be perfect)
- Hair Dryer (or heat gun if you’re awesome enough to own one)
- Scissors
- Trash Bag (To protect your surface from crayon drippings. And Mod Podge drippings. Just… bad drippings lol)
If you want a professionally painted saints pumpkin instead, you can check out the All Saints’ Day pumpkins from artist Bernadette Paoni.
Start by printing and cutting out your alphabet saints in the letters you need. I made the word “Saint” on one side of my pumpkin and “feast” on the other side.
Now Mod Podge them onto the pumpkin. When I’m working with letters, I start with the middle letter, so I put my “I” on first and then put the other letters around him. Put down a layer of Mod Podge with your brush, stick your Saint on there, and brush another layer over the top, slicking it down and working the wrinkles out gently with your fingers.
If you have an ink jet printer you have to be careful not to over-work the Mod Podge or it can smear. You can also put hair spray or a fixitive over the ink before you begin.
Once you have all of your Saints decoupaged onto the pumpkin, go ahead and cover the blank spots on your pumpkin with Mod Podge as well. This will insure that your entire pumpkin has a consistent cover and won’t be shinier in some spots than others.
While you allow the Mod Podge to dry, get your crayon nubs ready. If you need to peel the paper off the crayons, do it by making one cut down the crayon paper with an Exacto blade. This allows the paper to come off with no problems and saves a lot of peeling time. This is not a job for kids!
You have to fix the crayons onto the pumpkin so they stay in place while you’re melting them. I did this with hot glue. Just use a little bit to tack the crayons on. Put the glue on the pumpkin and then stick the crayon to it. If you use too much hot glue the texture will show through once the crayons are melted, so just use a little. If you use white glue, allow it to dry before melting the crayons.
Now you’re ready to start melting! Be sure to cover your surface with a trash bag to catch the rouge wax drips.
You want to put the blow dryer on the hottest heat setting, but the lowest air setting! It takes several minutes for the crayons to get shiny and start melting, but once they start melting it goes pretty quickly. This is a fun process!
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As the drips are running down you can control -at least to come extent- how far down the crayons will drip. At one point I had a bunch of wax drip over St. Elizabeth’s face and I just wiped it right off with a baby wipe while the wax was still warm. No problems!
I got a bag of small pumpkins at the grocery store to let all of my kids melt their own. This was a huge hit for all age groups!!!
Ages 6-60 enjoyed this craft!!! It’s a real crowd pleaser!
My kids love these so much, they’ve been carrying them all around the house with them! I’m serious. They ate breakfast with the pumpkins this morning before school… lol
The little ones remind me of candy apples. So fun! They all took on their own personalities.
This is super fun!!! Enjoy these moments with your kids and remember- walk the narrow path! Love you guys!!!
Check out my All Saints’ Day Resource Page here.
This is so awesome! I’m thinking of doing it at an All Saints’ party. How long would you say I should allot to complete the project?
I’d say… somewhere around 30 minutes to decoupage the pumpkin. Then ready the crayons while the mod podge dries… melting the crayons… I’m going to say probably like an hour or so total. I’d probably cut out the Saints ahead of time. Sounds like fun! Are you going to have everyone work together on one pumpkin or make several smaller pumpkins? We bottle necked at the hairdryer lol. The kids all had to take turns and I made sure none of them turned off the hair dryer, just passed it, or else it wouldn’t come back on haha!!!
Lacy- I did my trial run tonight. It was truly fun! However, it look forever to melt the crayons. I used the highest heat setting as you suggested. I am wondering if I could put the crayons in the oven to soften them up and then put them on the pumpkin to finish up. I am planning on doing this at our All Saints Eve party on Halloween at our parish. One big pumpkin per family and then kids can do smaller pumpkins for themselves!
Lacy- I did my test run this weekend and found that it seemed to take a LONG time to melt the crayons. Would I be able to put the crayons in the oven and soften them up and then put them on the pumpkins? We are going to do this at our party- each family will make one big pumpkin and then kids can make their own smaller pumpkin without the saint figures. Hope things go well!
What are the dimensions of the saints? Would you reccomend a medium or large craft pumpkin? Ty
You can print the Saints at different percentages of sizes, but I printed them as-is and I’d say my pumpkin is medium sized. I’d say medium sized to large would be the best pumpkins for this project.
Lacy…help! I love this idea for my 4th graders! I’d love to do this with craft pumpkins rather than the real ones in the hopes that the students keep it. Unfortunately, the pumpkins around here are $10 each. Is there anyway you could make a smaller version of the letter Saints? I wound up buying small pumpkins from the dollar store. Thanks so much
You could certainly print the saints at a smaller percentage. Like when you go to print, print them at say- 30%. Then they could fit on the pumpkins. You could also do something like have each kid only put 1 Saint, lets say the letter of their first name. Melting crayons on smaller pumpkins is certainly not a problem, but on a shorter pumpkin I might not melt crayons directly over the Saint’s heads- maybe just the other side of the pumpkin. Hope this is helpful! Happy crafting!
Thanks so much and sorry for asking the same question twice (thought the first one didn’t go through). I am a fourth grade catechist and it’s difficult to convince young students the importance of the Saints especially around Halloween. I’m looking for craft pumpkins under $10 each as opposed to real ones so (hopefully) they will keep it. Once I find the pumpkins I will download the Saints! Great idea!!!!!!
Thanks for this great project. We tried this last night with a heat gun (lowest setting worked better) and it was a lot harder to control how far down the melted crayon went because the wax stayed much hotter after the heat gun moved to a different part of the pumpkin. Overall we loved how our pumpkins turned out.
Interesting! Maybe a hair dryer is the way to go…. Some hair dryers get hotter than others also