How to Make Marbled Pumpkins with Fingernail Polish



Fingernail Polish Marbled Pumpkins
These quick and easy marbled pumpkins are so fun to make and add unexpected color to your fall decor. I am grateful for my thoughtful and talented friend, Kimberly, who wrote this post! You can find Kimberly on etsy and on Instagram here!
Pumpkin Love
I have a bit of a pumpkin problem, I admit. I add more to my collection each year and often paint the ones I already have to change up my color scheme for the year. I’m always looking for a new pumpkin or technique and I love this one in particular because it’s easy and uses materials you probably already have on hand.
Marbled Pumpkin Supplies
- Mini white pumpkins with stems long enough to use as a “handle” (real or faux both work!). Real pumpkins are great, or you can find faux pumpkins on Amazon, Michaels and some Dollar Tree locations! If you use faux pumpkin,s you can use them year after year.
- Bowl of room temperature water deep enough to completely submerge your pumpkins
- Nail polish—I recommend only using 3 colors so the colors don’t mix and give you a messy end product. The Sally Hansen brand is known to be one of the best brands when it comes to nail marbling which uses a very similar technique.
- Toothpicks
- Q-tips
- Wax paper



marbled pumpkins
How to Marble Pumpkins
- Apply the nail polish to the surface of the water. See first picture above. I’ve found it’s best to get a good drop on the brush and hold it close to the water and let it drip onto the surface. If you’re too far away, the drop is likely to sink to the bottom. When the drop comes in contact with the surface of the water, it should spread. If it doesn’t, help it along with a toothpick.
- Add drops of the nail polish to the surface of the water, alternating colors, until it is well covered. Work quickly before the nail polish dries.
- Once the surface of the water is covered, slowly dunk a pumpkin into the water, turning it slightly so that the nail polish clings to all sides.
- Place the pumpkin on wax paper to dry.
- If your pumpkin isn’t fully covered or you’d like to add more color, simply repeat the process.
- Before starting another round or another pumpkin, swirl a q-tip around the water to remove any remaining paint.
- After an hour, pumpkins should be dry and ready to display!

Aren’t they so pretty!! Kimberly inspired me, so I made some quick and easy marbled pumpkins as well using a different color palette- green and blue. I love how they turned out!

Another fun craft to do with pumpkins is to decoupage them. I did a blog post all about it and you can read about it here! They are so easy to create and are perfect for a GNO or kids craft. Let me know if you marble some pumpkins. Start to finish it only takes about 10 minutes plus drying time! Check out my Pinterest and Instagram and LTK for more inspiration.
Grateful for you💙🤍!
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