I am so excited to share pumpkin # 3 with you, because, once again, it features buttons! I love these button pumpkins! Pardon the rushed writing, I’ve got 3 lil kids hanging off of me (and one sucking the life out of me from the inside out lol).

WOAH that reminds me- I haven’t shared my gender-reveal cake with you all!!! A few days ago I found out the gender of this little baby! I made a cake with a pink or blue center, then iced it completely to cover any hint of the color. I let my 8 year old daughter cut it open to reveal the surprise! Here is the cake:

Tell ya what- I’ll put a photo of the inside of the cake at the bottom of the post. What an exciting post this will be!

NOW back to the pumpkin…

Cut it and gut it like so. (More details on this in Part 1 of my pumpkin journey)

Save the seeds and even the guts! I have some great roasted pumpkin seed recipes as well as this delicious broth made from the pumpkin innards!

Next, use a BOO! template (I got mine here) to trace your pattern onto the pumpkin with a sharp object.

Go over the indentation with a pen if you want it to be more clear. Note the odd texture of the pumpkin… my kids did that… they just felt the need to push a pencil lightly into the face of it one afternoon. Weirdos.

Next, bring out the big guns…

AKA black buttons.

I’m using pins rather than glue to attach these buttons to my pumpkins for two reasons: 1- I plan on reusing the buttons, and 2- I plan on eating the pumpkins. It would be quicker and easier to use hot glue, but with all the pumpkin recipes out there, how can you resist cutting up the old thing, cooking it, then freezing it into recipe-sized portions? I will definitely be posting a detailed tutorial on my favorite way to process a pumpkin! It also makes awesome baby food!

OH! Another distraction:

My friend suggested that I make a way to have some light shine through these button pumpkins- so I took a sharp tool and fashioned some little holes here and there. I think it will look so pretty at night! Feel free to skip this step if you want to.

Definitely looks like it has some sort of disease though. Anyways, back to buttoning…

Unlike my first button pumpkin, button size makes a big difference here. Choose buttons based on the size of your pattern. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but make sure to keep the small buttons on the smaller parts of the lettering!

After I finished the lettering, I felt like this pumpkin needed something else…

So I pinned some spider and bat embellishments all around. Cute hey?? I saw the original inspiration for this pumpkin on Pinterest. I couldn’t find an original source tho (I don’t like Pinterest for that- if you pin something, try to make sure that it links back to the original source- as someone who shares her creations online, it is really annoying to see one of my photos with 1000 repins that direct back to some random european website. Great now I’m in a bad mood. Speaking of which- Lets get back to the pregnancy surprise!

I actually video-taped my daughter cutting the gender-reveal cake, and if you want to watch that (it is so sweet- her reaction is awesome, and my son, who doesn’t quite understand what’s going on, is hilarious) Check it out here. 

AAAAAND the verdict is…

IT’S A GIRL!!!!!!!! YAYAYAYYAYAYAYYYYY!!!!!!!

Seriously, after having one girl and then 3 boys consecutively, we are pretty excited to be having some more estrogen in the house! Let me share a cute little ultrasound photo of her:

Introducing Flora Nightingale ❤ She is so cute and precious!

Well I guess this post didn’t turn out so rushed after all!

Happy pumpkin-making and gender-caking!

~ Dot