Make Polymer Clay Pumpkins- Easy DIY

I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned polymer clay on the blog, but it’s something I’ve played around with for over a year now. It’s like Play-Doh for adults. Polymer clay is, well, polymer. A PVC material that you mold like any clay, then bake in the oven. I like making tiny cute things that serve no purpose, or making seasonal decorations. A few days ago I thought I would make polymer clay pumpkins and that was a very good idea indeed. They are adorable.

If you have never used polymer clay before, YouTube has a million videos for beginners. A sampler pack of Sculpey clay can be ordered from Amazon. I use Darice clay sculpting tools. The other tools, the ones with the ball tips, are actually nail art tools and are supremely useful for working with clay.

So here we go. Pumpkin time.

If you have orange clay, you are already ten steps ahead. I took a piece of yellow and a small chunk of red and rolled them together. (Mixing colors together requires a lot of rolling and twisting.) I’m using Sculpey clay for this, but you can use whatever brand you want.

I made three pumpkins. The first was pretty uniformly orange, but the other two I didn’t mix as much, and left them with yellow veins running through.

When the color is the way you want it, roll the clay into a ball and gently flatten it to form a pumpkin. Take a pointy tool, or a ruler, or whatever you have. Use it to press lines into the sides of the ball, going from the bottom all the way to the top. The deeper the lines, the more the individual sections will bulge out, just like a real pumpkin.

Then take a tiny bit of brown clay and roll it into a Hershey kiss kind of shape. This is the pumpkin stem.

I like to use these ball tool thingies to attach clay. Use it to smooth the bottom of the stem out into the top of the pumpkin. The ball will smooth everything out evenly. I also ran it up and down the stem to give it texture.

The next step is baking! This pumpkin took about 20 minutes at 275 degrees F. (I use a toaster oven for this.) The largest pumpkin took 30 minutes at the same temperature.

When they come out of the oven and cool, they looked like this. (I forgot to mention that I took green clay and added a vine to one pumpkin.)

I like to seal my clay after its baked. It’s a personal preference, but I like how shiny it makes everything. You can buy a special clay sealant, but water-based polyurethane works well. Water-based, not the urethane stuff.

Apply one thin coat with a paintbrush, let dry, and that’s it.

They are so freaking cute I can’t stand it.

Go forth and make polymer clay pumpkins. Sculpt away.

See you later!