Recycled CD Pumpkin

Plant this reycled CD pumpkin in amongst your vines, or turn it into a Jack O’Lantern pumpkin for your fridge or locker – either way, you’ll save one or two compact discs from the landfill, and create a cute Halloween decoration with naturally luminescent facial features.

By Jane Lake

You will need:

• one CD or DVD for a fridgie, preferably two for a plant poke
• orange paint
• black permanent marker or CD marker
• hot glue gun and glue sticks, or strong tacky glue
• three artificial fall leaves with wire stems – or cut some leaf shapes from felt, craft foam or construction paper and use green twist ties as the wire.
• black pompom, black button or black circle for the nose
• for the fridgie version only: fridge magnet
• for the plant poke only: straight length of wire cut from a clothes hanger or a strong wire stem;
• optional for indoor display of the plant poke: real or artificial green vine in a pot

Project Instructions:

1. Using black permanent marker, outline the eyes and mouth of your jack o’lantern on the shiny face of a discarded CD (the ones sent to you in junk mail are good for this)! Make the features nice and large, so the luminescent, mirror finish of the CD will shine through and catch the light.

2. Paint around the facial features in orange paint. You will need to paint several layers, letting the paint dry between coats.

3. If needed, after the last coat of paint is dry, go over the outlines for the eyes and mouth in permanent marker once again.

4. Glue three fall leaves to the back, so that they show up nicely from the front, at the very top center of the pumpkin face. If the leaves have wire stems, cut the stem from each leaf and wind it around a toothpick or bamboo stick until it looks like a spring, or the curly tendril from a vine. Small green twist ties would also work well for this purpose.

When you have two or three springy tendrils, glue them at the base of the leaves so they are visible from the front of the jack o’ lantern.

5. To make the CD pumpkin into a fridgie or locker decoration, glue a fridge magnet on the back.

6. To make the CD pumpkin into a plant poke, you will need to attach a stem. If you are using a single CD, you can attach a wire stem, or even a stick from the garden, using strong tape such as duct tape, or a strong bond of hot glue.

If you are using two CDs for the plant poke, first glue the stem in place on the back of the decorated pumpkin (making sure the pumpkin face will be the right way up when you are finished). When the wire stem is secure, glue the second CD over the back of the first one, shiny side out, so that the wire stem and the base of the leaves are sandwiched in between both CDs.

7. To finish either version, push a small black pompom into the center hole of the CDs to make the nose. If desired, secure the pompom with glue. Alternatively, you could cover the hole with a circle or triangle cut from black felt, craft foam, or construction paper, or simply glue on a round black button.