Here is a simple Halloween Pumpkin Ornament craft with a surprise - a black cat popping out to say "boo!"

(click here for a larger Halloween Pumpkin Ornament image)

Black cats and Jack O'Lanterns; the purr-fect combination for a Victorian Halloween Pumpkin Ornament. This ornament is so simple to make from four basic ingredients. Start with a charming vintage image of a black cat in a pumpkin. Add a foamcore disk, some black and orange tinsel garland, and a black satin hanging ribbon.

With a large piece of foamcore board and a single garland, you can literally turn out dozens of these for your Halloween tree, your windows, your door, and all around the house. Great little topper for a gift of candy, too.

Like our Halloween Witch Ornament, this Halloween Pumpkin Ornament is a very versatile design that can lend itself to ornaments for all occasions.

There are two secrets to the construction. The first secret is - keep this between us - foamcore board. The other secret is printing two mirror-image vintage illustrations for the front and back. We give them to you, ready to be printed, but if you start making your own designs, start with two identical copies of your image and "flip" one of them with your graphics program.

Materials for Halloween Pumpkin Ornament

• Vintage images (FREE PDF download).
• Matte photo paper, heavyweight.
• Foamcore board, 3/16" thick (see Tips).
• Tinsel garland, 2" thick. We used garland that was black and orange, but solid black or any coordinated color will work (see Tips).
• Ribbon, 3/8" wide and 24" long, black.
• Craft glue.
• Foam mounting tape or squares.
• Scissors.
• Craft knife (for cutting foamcore board) (see Tips).
• Self-healing cutting mat.

Instructions

1. Print the vintage images on matte photo paper. Trim them carefully with small scissors. Cut a 1 3/4" circle from foamcore board. Glue the foamcore circle in the center of the back of the pumpkin on one image. Apply glue to the foamcore circle, position the other trimmed image exactly over the reversed image and press until the glue is dry (see Tips).
2. Cut a 6" length of tinsel garland. Apply craft glue to the edge of the foamcore circle between the paper cutouts. Starting at the top of the ornament, push the tinsel garland between the paper cutouts into the glue on the foamcore disk, circling the foamcore, ending at the top. Press under a book and let the glue dry.
3. Tie the ends of the ribbon together in a knotted bow to form a loop. With the bow at one end of the loop, insert the other end of the loop between the back to back images of the cat.
4. Cut three or four 3/8" squares of foam mounting tape and stick them together in a block (they should equal the thickness of the 3/16" foamcore board). With the hanging ribbon pressed down into the tinsel garland, place the mounting-tape cube behind the cat's head, and press the heads together to secure. Fluff up the tinsel garland again, and you should have the ribbon looped under the mounting tape and ready to hang.
5. Boo! A Halloween Pumpkin Ornament. This combination of picture, shape, tinsel and ribbon is pure Victorian, and you could fool someone into thinking it is a genuine artifact. Now rummage through your collection of vintage images and whip up some more instant antiques (see Tips)!

Tips

• Foamcore board, or foam board, is a material constructed of an inner layer of polystyrene foam sandwiched between two layers of heavy paper. We used black (black paper on black foam) but this project will work as well with any color.
• Cutting foamcore board is tricky. Do not use scissors, because they will crush the edge as you cut. Use a long-blade craft knife or a micro-saw.
• At Halloween time, it is possible to find tinsel garland in Halloween colors, like black or black and orange. If not, be bold and raid your Christmas decoration box. Gold or silver garland will work just fine, or you might find other unusual colors that coordinate with your vintage image.
• Once we glued the two images back to back, sandwiching the foamcore circle between them, we could see that the white paper back would show between the cat's heads. That's what marking pens are for. With a non-bleeding black marking pen we colored the backs of the cat's heads for a professional touch.
• When looking for other vintage images for these ornaments, here are the qualities you want:
• well-defined shapes are the best, like circles or other geometrics.
• avoid images with words, because when the image is flipped on the back of the ornament, the words will be reversed as well.
• if you find an irregular shaped picture you like, trim it with the background into a circle or oval, or cut out the figure and glue it to a geometric shaped background paper. We did this with a flying witch, and glued it to a yellow full-moon image for a great composite picture. Remember, you can resize any image.