I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables when I was growing up. She lived on the majestic Prince Edward Island (PEI) with its beautiful fields, haunted woods and ocean views. Anne had wonderful friends and adventure was always around the corner. I would lay in bed and watch Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea when I was home sick from school. I read and re-read the Anne of Green Gables series and all the other books by L.M. Montgomery. My husband took me to Prince Edward Island and to visit Green Gables for my birthday 10 years ago.

Here I am with my carpet bag waiting for Matthew by the train station!

We visited Green Gables, strolled through the haunted wood, drank raspberry cordial and saw Anne of Green Gables The Musical in Charlottetown. We also took the time to stand on the shore and look out into ocean just as I imagine L.M. Montgomery did when she was alive. Here’s a scrapbook layout I did about my time on PEI.

I have read different abridged versions of the Anne of Green Gables to Kara through the years. Kara knows how much I love Anne and the importance of the “e” in Anne’s name. Kara came home a few weeks ago and told me she needed to do a book report and decorate a pumpkin like one of the characters. I was both surprised and overjoyed when she said she wanted to use Anne of Green Gables for her book report and decorate the pumpkin to look like Anne!!!

Kara wrote her book report first and then we started on her pumpkin. First I had to her write down a list of all of Anne’s important facial characteristics. She came up with:

• red hair
• green eyes
• freckles
• light skin color

Kara chose all the materials for her project:

• white foam pumpkin
• craft paint (folkArt brand in Light Flesh color – affiliate link)
• yarn (Heartland brand in Yosemite color – affiliate link)
• 2 green rhinestones
• a small piece of white cardstock
• 1 inch circle punch
• red vinyl
• brown Crayola marker
• duck tape
• green felt
• fabric flowers
• button
• hot glue gun
• glue sticks
• paper adhesive
• ribbon to tie the braids

Directions:

1. Paint the pumpkin with craft paint. Kara used 3 coats and let the paint dry in between each coat.

2. Make the felt hat. The hat will hide the duck tape that will attach Anne’s yarn hair. Kara traced a 9 inch plate onto green felt and then cut it out. I placed the felt on the pumpkin and made four small folds and secured it using hot glue. I set the hat aside and let it dry.

3. Attach the hair to the pumpkin. This step was definitely took the most time.

First we created a line of bangs across the front of the pumpkin. Kara cut the yarn much longer than we needed because we planned on giving Anne a bang trim at the end. We lined up the individual yarn pieces and then I used a piece of duck tape and pressed it down on all the yarn pieces. The yarn only came up to half of the height of the duck tape. The other half was yarnless so it could attach to the pumpkin. The bangs were wide because I wanted it to overlap underneath Anne’s braids. When I attached the initial bangs, it looked kind of thin so we repeated the process and created another layer of bangs on top of the first.

We repeated the same cutting and duck tape process for the longer hair. The only difference was that the long hair was attached the to the sides of the pumpkin. I made sure that the long hair overlapped the bangs so that there wouldn’t be any space between the bangs and the braids. The long hair also had two layers on each side to make it thicker.

4. Create two braids. Braid each side into a separate braid. I left the braid kind of loose near the top so that it wouldn’t show a gap between the braid and the bangs. I pulled the braid tighter as I braided down the bottom. Tie each braid off with a piece of ribbon.

5. Create the eyes. Kara used a 1 inch circle punch and the white cardstock to create two circle bases for Anne’s eyes. She adhered green rhinestones to the circles and then adhered it to the pumpkin.

6. Create lips. I used an extra cut of red vinyl lips that I had from making these LEGO Inspired Trick-Or-Treat Buckets. You can find the free cut file in that post. If you don’t have vinyl, you could draw on the lips or cut them out of red paper. I used my Silhouette to cut out the lips but you can just use scissors.

7. Add the freckles. Kara use a brown marker to add Anne’s freckles in a dotting frenzy.

8. Add the felt hat. There was hot glue showing in the folds of the hat so I just turned it over and it looked okay. I hot glued the hat to to the top of the pumpkin making sure that it covered all the duck tape. Kara wanted to add a flower to the hat. She created a layered flower with a button for the middle. I hot glued the flower to the hat. I also hot glued the top of Anne’s braids to the side of the pumpkin so there wouldn’t be a gap between Anne’s bangs and her braids. I know I am obsessed with not having a gap right? 🙂

The pumpkin has now been transformed into Anne Shirley of Green Gables. She’ll be on display in our house until she is expected at school. Is it weird that I want to make a Gilbert pumpkin to keep Anne company? They should be together forever as far as I’m concerned!

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