My favorite season of the year is Autumn. I love a bit of chill in the air, the leaves changing their glorious colors, the apple cider and pumpkin pie. My only problem? Southern California doesn’t have seasons. Well, not the kind that the rest of the country has. I live in the desert, and this past week it has still been over 100° each day. The only leaves changing are the ones that are turning brown from lack of rain. So what’s a girl to do?

Fake it.

When I taught in the classroom, I loved doing art activities and crafts with my students to mark the changing of seasons (since we couldn’t see them in our hot, dry climate.) Now, since I’m not in the classroom anymore, I decorate my cubicle each season. (Why yes, my coworkers do think I’m crazy.)

One project I’ve recently discovered is how to make fabric pumpkins. I did my own version of the Wrapped Pumpkin craft from Art for All Seasons. This is similar to the paper bag pumpkins we’ve all made, but much less messy and quite frankly, a whole lot cuter. I think it would be a fun activity to do with kids.

The only materials you need are the following:

• toilet paper or paper towel rolls
• plastic bags
• sticks
• fabric

You can find fabric quite inexpensively at places like Walmart, which has a $1/yard table. You can also ask for donations of fabric. Heck, if you want to use all recycled materials, use old shirts.

(I have raffia shown because I was thinking of using it for a bow; it is not necessary.)

Depending on how many rolls you can get, you might need to cut the toilet paper rolls in half to make smaller pumpkins. For a full-sized roll, I cut a square of fabric roughly 12 inches on each side. You could actually use less than this.

Take a toilet paper roll and wrap about 3-4 plastic bags around it. (For smaller pumpkins, you only need one or two.)

Now take the corners of the fabric and tuck them inside the top of the toilet paper roll.

Once all the corners are tucked in, fold in any fabric edges that may still be sticking out.

Place a stick inside the roll to make a stem (and to keep the fabric in place). If you want it to be more secure, you can glue the fabric inside the roll.

I also added a piece of a plant to make it look like it was from a vine, but you can also use leaves or anything else to dress it up.

On this pumpkin, I used rolled-up paper to make a stem.

You’ll notice I also didn’t stick to a typical pumpkin color; don’t worry if you don’t have all orange fabric. Let the kids mix it up!

These are a fun, colorful way to add a bit of fall to the classroom, as well as encouraging students to use recycled materials in a non-traditional way.  Happy Fall Y’all!