Pumpkin carving has always been one of my favorite October activities, and it never quite feels like Halloween until I've fully immersed my hands in pumpkin innards.  That said, having little kids at home usually inspires me to look for safer pumpkin decorating alternatives.  We've done stickers, and chalk board paint, and painted a pumpkin teal in honor of the Teal Pumpkin Project.  But this year, it's the crayon drip pumpkin that is all the rage.  It's a great project for kids to help with, and in my opinion the end result is so lovely it's centerpiece-worthy.  (Not to mention, you won't have to put on rubber gloves and arm yourself with trash bags in order to remove the rotting carved pumpkin corpse from your front porch - bonus!)

Crayon Drip Pumpkin DIY 

Materials

- a medium to large sized pumpkin (preferably white)

- crayons

- glue (craft glue or hot glue gun)

- hair dryer or embossing heat tool   

- wax/parchment paper and other items to protect surfaces from crayon splatters

Instructions

1.  Clean and dry pumpkin.

2.  Remove crayon wrappers.  Break in half or to whatever size needed to fit on top of pumpkin.

3.  Glue crayons to top of pumpkin with craft glue and allow to dry completely.  Or, if you have no patience, like myself, use hot glue gun to glue ends of crayons to stem.  (I'm not gonna lie, I had a lot of issues with gluing the crayons to the pumpkin.  I think my pumpkins were too small for the size crayons we were trying to glue on, and the pumpkins were too cold for the hot glue to stick to.  It might take some trial and error.)   

4.  Place pumpkin on protected surface (I recommend the floor) and turn your hair dryer on it's lowest setting.  Point nozzle at crayons one at a time and watch them melt!  (And splatter!  You may want to cover your clothes and have your kids stand back.)

Note: I think my hair dryer was too powerful for this project and in retrospect, believe that my embossing heat tool may have been a better option as it wouldn't blow the melted crayon everywhere.  If you happen to have an embossing heat tool and want to try it out please let me know how it goes!