Coastal Cornucopia with Chalk Painted Pumpkins

In keeping with my goal of creating a coastal autumn decor this year, I wanted to change some old pieces into beauties that would fit into this new color palette. I put together a Coastal Cornucopia with Chalk Painted Pumpkins. I’ve had a wicker cornucopia for many years. Some years, I’ll bring it out, fill it with lots of oranges and yellows and reds, place it on a table and not give it much thought. It never really added much pop to my fall decor. I set out to change that this year.

The first step in changing the look of this was to spray paint the cornucopia. I gave it coat of white primer to make sure I covered all of the brown. Once that was dry, I covered it in light blue spray paint. The final coat was green, but I let a little of the blue show through here and there.

I liked the new color and was well on my way to making it fit in with my other coastal autumn decor. Deciding how I wanted to paint the Dollar Tree pumpkins was the next step. I have a lot of these from lots of years of shopping at Dollar Tree and I picked out the ones that I thought would be the right sizes for the cornucopia.

I could have made it a little easier by spray painting them, but I didn’t want them to be shiny and smooth. I wanted them to have imperfections, so I opted to hand paint them using chalk paint. It took longer, but I think the result was worth the extra time. I painted each of them a solid color and let them dry. Then I used a small craft paint brush to add lines and smudges on each one with a contrasting paint color. Are blue pumpkins a thing? I’m not sure, but they look pretty!

I added in a few gourds and squash. Once I had painted a bunch of these, I started to wonder about the best way to fill the cornucopia to have it look like the vegetables are spilling out.

I stuffed several plastic bags inside to fill up the bottom half. I needed something to use as a base for the pumpkins that would make it easier to have them spilling out. I turned a cool whip container upside down and pushed it into the cornucopia. I knew saving some of those would come in handy!

I glued a piece of rope around the rim of the cornucopia to bring in more of the coastal look. I also used some burlap tape around the top of the plastic tub to cover some of the white.

The last step was to hot glue the pumpkins in place. This was a little trickier than it sounds to get the right fit. After a little trial and error of just placing them before hot gluing them and having them fall out and bounce across the floor, I just started gluing them randomly. I used sprigs of wheat which look a bit like marsh grass to fill in any gaps. I added in a few leaf sprigs, too.

My wine rack is in my breakfast nook area right next to the table. I used my new coastal cornucopia as the centerpiece for the rack.

I bought the Welcome Autumn sign last year at Joanne’s and I love that it’s muted orange, not bright. It fits in just right. Coral candles and a couple of wooden pumpkins complete the look.

The more coastal colors I add to my fall decor, the more I’m enjoying it. It’s nice to change things up now and then, don’t you think?

It’s easy to change the look of things we have on hand with just some paint and a little time. I had everything I needed for this, so the total cost was zero. That’s a win!

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