Today we found a Halloween activity that had Mr T quivering with excitement. We called it ‘Pumpkin Nailing’. It’s a fun task for the little ones and a great exercise in hand/eye coordination. It’s an interesting twist on pumpkin decorating…
For this activity, we needed;
A pumpkin
Nails
A hammer
String, twine or yarn
Scissors
Hammer the nails into the pumpkin in a circle around the top of the pumpkin. Mr T loved this… a hammer is VERY cool when you are 2!
Leave a tiny bit of the nail exposed.
When K was having her turn at hammering, Mr T was a very good apprentice too.
When the top circle of nails is in, hammer in a second circle of nails around the base of the pumpkin…
Cut about 3 yards of your yarn (string or twine) and tie one end around a nail…
Make your yarn pattern on your pumpkin by winding your yarn around each nail, in a zig-zag pattern.
Great concentration is needed to get the zig-zag perfect…
We felt we needed a more elaborate pattern, so back to hammering nails into our pumpkin…
And threading a different colored yarn onto the nails…
And, Voila! Our Pumpkin Nailing is complete and our pumpkin is very pretty indeed…
Be sure to come back on Fridays to participate in Friday’s Nature Table, our nature collective where we share our nature-inspired posts.
Be sure to come back on Fridays to participate in Friday’s Nature Table, our nature collective where we share our nature-inspired posts.Blessings and magic.
20 Responses
ouch! (looks great though….)
I love this post! How did you think it up? You are so original….really, a fountain of creativity! Beth
I’ve had my kids hammer nails into pumpkins before, but never thought about using string to make a beautiful design! This is a fantastic idea.
Great idea! I’m sure my kids would love that!
that is so cute! Out here in Arizona I don’t think we’d be able to do this though. As soon as you puncture the pumpkins, they start rotting. We have to put off carving until the 30th! I will file this away in my “when we leave AZ” mental file!
Love it! Thanks for sharing.
That does look like fun and less messy than cleaning out a pumpkin before carving it.
Oh, my little ones also enjoy using a hammer whenvever possible, so this is being added to our must-do list! Thanks for such an original idea!
We had a couple extra pumpkins last year….one sat in our school room with a hammer and nails for at least a month. My boys loved having it around!
That is such a cute idea! Last year we did colored push pins with sequins all over the pumpkins and they turned out really cute.
Jamie :)
p.s. my daughter finally got her shroom home and gnome and she just LOVED IT!! Yay, hopefully I’ll be able to photograph it and get it up on the blog soon. Thanks again! She said…man, it must have taken her FOREVER to make this, hahahaha.
Love it!!
One reason for doing the nail & yarn technique is the seeds and guts don’t have to be cleaned out.
One extra idea is to use double-ended nails which give a quarter inch area to hold the yarn.
What a great idea! G will love this. :)
This is one I’ve never seen, very cool hands on fun.
What an interesting idea. We must try this! I am sure my boys would enjoy this.
I am wondering if the kids had the desire to continue nailing. I remember doing this long ago with one of my older girls and they used golf tees. And they did A LOT of them. Were they satisfied with the nails then string or did they want to continue? :)
Love how you added the string to the hammering.