Easy Hydro Dipped Painted Pumpkins - The DIY Nuts (2024)

Do you love decorating for Fall, but don’t always want everything to be orange? This fun painted faux pumpkin craft can be done in less than 20 minutes (minus dry time) and costs under $5!

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own.This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.Read our full privacy policy.

I grabbed these faux pumpkins at the end of the season for really cheap. I knew they would make the perfect Fall decoration. Come along and learn how to water marble using your leftover spray paint.

How Do You Create A Marble Effect With Spray Paint

Because most spray paints are oil-based they can create a fun effect in the water. Think about how salad dressing creates the effect in your bottle. Essentially you are hydro dipping by floating the spray paint on top of the water before dipping.

We have used the same technique to create amazing marble terracotta pots.

DIY Painted Pumpkins Instructions

Before You Begin

Set up your paint station and make sure your pumpkins are dust-free.

Step 1: Spray Faux Pumpkins White

Use large sweeping motions to cover pumpkins with white gloss spray paint. Let spray paint fully dry.

Step 2: Fill Water Container and Gather Spray Paints

Your container only needs a little bigger than your pumpkins. We used a Dollar Store container. You will probably ruin the container so don’t use one you love.

Step 3: Add Spray Paint To Water

You will need to do this very quickly. We sprayed gold and then black spray paint.

Step 4: Swirl Paint Around

Use a skewer to swirl the paint around. You don’t really need to mix it too much.

Step 5: Dip Pumpkin In Water

You will see how the paint attaches to the pumpkin when you dip it. You can twist the pumpkin before pulling it out.

Step 6: Pull Pumpkin Out

You can dip the whole pumpkin or just half of one like in this picture.

Note: You may want to wear gloves if you don’t want your hands to be covered in spray paint.

Step 7: Prop Up To Dry

If you dip the whole pumpkin this is a little difficult. For the ones that were completely dipped, we used old styrofoam to stick the stems in.

How To Display

Use a dollar store basket to display your pumpkin craft.

Finished Painted Pumpkins

The best part about these gold, white and black marbled pumpkins is that you can keep them out past Halloween. We may even use them as place cardholders at Thanksgiving.

How can I tell if my spray paint is oil-based?

Look at the clean-up instructions. If it says it needs to be cleaned up with mineral spirits or paint thinner then you have oil-based paint.
If the clean-up instructions say to clean with soap and water then you have water-based paint.

Can you do this on real mini pumpkins?

I would think if you spray or paint your pumpkins first with acrylic craft paint this technique would work. If you want to do larger pumpkins, just make sure that you have a large enough container for water.

Do you have to spray a base color?

We found that the spray paint sticks better if you coat the pumpkins with spray paint that has a primer built in first. We tried a few on just the plain pumpkin body and some of the faux marble paint chipped off.