Pumpkins In the Bookcase

Hi everyone! I’ve been selling my books on Amazon for the past month or so and the result is that I have lots of empty space on my bookshelves (and some extra fun money)!

I, of course, have to fill up all that empty space! Anyway, I wanted to make something that  I could put on one of the shelves that wasn’t scary or halloweeney (you won't find any halloween projects here) and came across a tutorial for a paperback book pumpkin @ Craftberry Bush. This is a new to me blog which seems to have lots of lovely craft ideas. So please do visit her and have a look.

It’s such an easy & inexpensive project and I think it’s the perfect type of pumpkin for a bookshelf -don’t you? That’s a real pumpkin stem on it by the way.

On the bottom shelf I used a pumpkin I made last year. It’s a white one with black polka dots.


I just used those stick on dot things you get at the office supply store. They don’t come in black so I just went over them with a black sharpie. Then you just peel and stick them on the pumpkin. Easy, easy! Of course, you can do whatever color suits you – it’s a fantasy pumpkin so it doesn’t matter. Just coordinate it with your decor.

Surrounded by a few other pumpkins and a little Pottery Barn vase I got at the thrift store

On the top shelf I put a red and yellow pumpkin that I got at some store last year – Hobby Lobby/Michaels – one of those. I like that pumpkins don’t have to be orange anymore – I keep those for decorating my front porch area.

Here’s how I made the paperback book pumpkin:

1. Take the cover off your paperback and draw the shape of your pumpkin on an appropriately sized piece of cardboard.

2. Place your cardboard stencil on your book and use an exacto knife to cut around it. It’ll take several passes.

3. I did stain the edges of the pages with a tea bag as suggested in the Craftberry Bush tutorial.

4. I used a stem from one of my real pumpkins but the tutorial uses a stick (from your yard) hot glued to the spine of the book (with the top sticking up over the book).

5.Then glue a few pages around the stick and hold the pages together with a clip. I glued a few of the back pages together and glued my stem on top.


6. I found that I did have to fuss with the pages a bit to get it fan out properly. I had to make the spine more flexible so that I could get it to fan all around.

Although, my daughter says mine is more like a paperback pear than pumpkin! I guess I should have made it squatter :)


Thanks for the kind comments and emails on my last post! I had been feeling a bit weepy about taking my plates out of the garden and all.

Also, saw the doctor yesterday and he said I can do 45 min of non/low impact aerobics 4 x's a week since my knee is doing so much better. So today I biked for 45 min and I feel so much better! When I don’t exercise regularly things bother me so much more than when I do exercise. So I’m glad I’m able to get back at it!

As always, thanks for stopping by!