Caroline
My daughter’s preschool teacher recently made melted plastic cup apples with my daughter’s class. I have since decided they are the coolest thing ever! My 4 year old raved about how amazing it was to watch the cup melt in the oven so quickly and I have been eager to experience this awesomeness for myself… So when I found orange plastic cups at the store you better bet I was all over creating melted pumpkins to be just as cool as my daughter’s preschool teacher (wink!).
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Supplies you will need:
- orange plastic cups
(I used the Hefty Brand similar to these found on Amazon) - an oven
- baking sheet
- parchment paper
or silicone baking mat - metal spatula
- hole punch
- green pipe cleaner
- brown paper
- scissors
- hot glue gun, glue dot, or tacky glue
- Items for embellishments (black marker, neon glitter glue, glow in the dark glitter glue) [We received our glitter glue from our friends at Craftprojectideas.com.]
Directions:
1. Cut the rim off of your orange plastic cup. Place it on your baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. This will protect your baking sheet from the melted plastic. I melted 2 cups at a time on my baking sheet.
2. Heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place your baking sheet in the oven. (Make sure your kids are looking through the window of your oven at this awesome part) You will have to watch them closely because they melt very fast. I cooked mine for 90 seconds, but depending on your oven they may need to cook for 1-2 minutes. Once the cups have melted flat remove them out of the oven. Some of mine curled slightly so as soon as I removed them from the oven I used my metal spatula to press on them lightly to uncurl them and flatten them out as best as I could. You only have a window of about 10 seconds to do this so you must work fast! You can see in my picture below that they aren’t perfectly flat, they have a little bit of curvature to them, but they still resemble a pumpkin shape.
3. At this point I used a hole punch to punch a hole in the pumpkin. We cut our green pipe cleaner in half, poked it through the front of the pumpkin and twisted it around itself to attach it to the pumpkin. Curl the remaining strand around your finger to make a vine.
4. Also, glue a brown stem to the back of your pumpkin. We used a glue dot because we had them on hand, but you could also use a hot glue gun (requires adult assistance) or tacky glue.
5. Now it’s time to embellish your pumpkin however your choose. Some things we used were a black marker, neon glitter glue, and glow in the dark glitter glue. The glow in the dark glitter glue turned out pretty fun. Here’s a peek at our pumpkin glowing in the dark.
Here is my 4 yr old’s pumpkin face she created.
Try combining this craft with
You might also enjoy our Pumpkin Cutting Practice Jack-o-Lantern Craft or our Balloon Stamped Pumpkin Patch Art.
