Pumpkin Totem Pole

The other night I had some major insomnia, so as I lay there in bed, I was trying to think of what kind of decoration I could make for Halloween that would show off the personality of all of us in our family.  And then it hit me .... A TOTEM POLE!
I went cheap, using mostly the supplies on hand, or things from the Dollar Tree.  In the end, though, I think it turned out sooooo adorable!
So here is my tutorial on how to make your own!

Supplies needed:
Carvable Pumpkins from Dollar Tree
3.5 foot piece of wood.  I used an old 2x4 that had seen MANY better days.
1/2 yard of Burlap
Ribbon
1 button
Paint
Hot glue
knife

These are the pumpkins you will want to pick up at the Dollar Tree.  I'm sure you could find something similar at other places.  I'm cheap, though, so I got mine there.  I purchased 3 of them.

Cut them down the center, right through the stalk.  This is what they look like after you've cut them.

Now decorate them however you want to.  I used sharpies and paint to decorate mine.  Since I ended up with 6 1/2 pumpkins, and we only have 5 people in our family, I used the 6th one to write Trick or Treat and put some spiders and webs on it.

See my spider!

Here they are all finished.  I painted one of them like a tiger for Adrian.  The second in is Jack Skellington for my husband.  Third in is the Trick Or Treat one.  Bottom row, first on the left is a robot pumpkin for Timmy.  Second in is a Vampire pumpkin for Niko.  And last is a Sugar Skull pumpkin for me.

Now you need to get your piece of wood out.  It doesn't really matter what it looks like, because you will be covering it with burlap.

Use your hot glue gun to hold the burlap down.  I ended up "wrapping" it like a present.  It made for nice end pieces that way. 

Here it is, ready to have the pumpkins attached!

I tried to show you in this picture how I put hot glue right on the inside of the stem and a little over the top, as well as the bottom.  Then I placed the pumpkin onto the burlap covered wood in the order I wanted them. 

I did end up making a little bow with some dollar store ribbon for the top.  Just used orange, lime green, and brown ribbons to do that, and put an orange button in the center of the bow. (To hid the glue from the glue gun! LOL)

Final piece!   I love it!  You'll want to put a hanging thing on the back so you can hang this up in your home, or perhaps lean it up in the corner.  Did you notice that I am low man on the totem pole here?  LOL

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