If you’re looking for a fun fall (or Halloween) shirt, you can easily make one with our DIY Wine Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt tutorial.
For more craft ideas, check out all of our DIY posts.
I like seasonal-themed items. If you follow Drugstore Divas on Instagram, you know that because you’ve seen me change our kitchen towels and the photos in our gallery wall with holidays and seasons.
But holiday shirts? I don’t have enough of those. And actually, I don’t have a single Halloween-themed shirt. So off to Walmart I went. Not to buy a Halloween shirt. But to buy a plain white shirt (on clearance for $1 because yes, this was a frugal idea) to make this Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt.
It’s a super easy project using craft supplies you probably already have at home.
There are a lot of homemade shirt tutorials that use freezer paper and spray adhesive to make a stencil. Those shirts are beautiful, but they’re not nearly as frugal as this version. And frugal, well, that’s the name of this blog, isn’t it?
Pumpkins are perfect for fall. If you agree, you need to check out all of our fun Pumpkin Crafts. You’ll get some great ideas for wooden pumpkins, paper pumpkins, and more.
DIY Wine Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt
Affiliate links are included in this post and Drugstore Divas may make a small commission if you use them.
DIY Wine Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt Supplies:
- Pumpkin Stencil Printable *see below
- Scissors
- Painter’s tape
- Pencil
- Card stock
- T-shirt
- Scrap piece of cardboard
- Orange acrylic paint (three colors)
- Green acrylic paint
- Paper plate
- Two wine corks
How To Make A DIY Wine Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt:
Print out the printable below. That’s formatted to fit two pumpkins on an 8.5×11 sheet of printer paper so you can print it at home.
Or, just draw a pumpkin-shape onto a piece of paper.
Cut out the pumpkin.
Place it on top of a piece of card stock and trace the pumpkin on it.
Cut out the pumpkin, making sure to leave the outside frame completely in tact, so you made a card stock stencil.
Alternatively, you could just print the pumpkin on card stock and print it out, but my home printer doesn’t do well printing on thick card stock.
Position the card stock stencil wherever you want the pumpkin to be.
Tape it onto the shirt with painter’s tape to hold it in place.
Stick a piece of thin cardboard behind the pumpkin, between the front and back of the shirt. You need this to absorb any excess paint so it doesn’t bleed through onto the back of the shirt.
Pour some acrylic paint onto a paper plate.
Dip the wine cork into the orange paint, then stamp the pumpkin stencil.
The best way I found to do this was to stamp three times before adding more paint. That gives you enough fade in color to appear like you’re using multiple colors without using too many.
Pro tip: When you’re stamping at the edges, you want to be careful that the stencil is pushed down as close to the shirt as possible so that the paint doesn’t bleed underneath and you end up with a wonky pumpkin.
Continue, varying the orange acrylic paints, until you filled in the entire pumpkin.
Dip the second wine cork (or just the opposite end of the wine cork you just used) into the green acrylic paint and stamp the stem at the top of the pumpkin.
Let the shirt dry overnight before removing the painter’s tape, stencil, and the cardboard in the shirt.
DIY Wine Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt: Frequently Asked Questions
I like using a wine cork rather than a pencil when I’m making t-shirts. If you want to use a pencil eraser, that’s fine. But, then you can’t use that eraser after (which is, like, half the function of that pencil). So, I just don’t feel like it’s the most economical craft. Wine corks are basically trash anyway, so you’re rescuing them from the garbage (before, well, throwing them into the garbage).
Years ago, when I had too much free time on my hands, I made a skull stencil and used spray paint to spray the design. That was such a fun craft ad I absolutely loved how it came out.
So, if you want, you can absolutely use spray paint for this. You just have to be very careful and spray very thin layers of paint. If you’re not careful, you’re gonna spray completely under the stencil and you won’t be able to tell what your design was.
You can use any color shirt that you want to make this. I used white because that’s what I found on clearance at Walmart. But this would look great on a black shirt too.
Personally, I wouldn’t suggest using an orange shirt because it would be really hard to see orange paint on an orange shirt.
You can wash the shirt just like any other shirt, although I would suggest washing it inside out on the coldest temperature, just to preserve the acrylic paint as well as possible.
You’ll want to hang it to dry so that you don’t risk any of the paint cracking from the heat of the dryer.
Purchase Pumpkin Shirts Online:
If you’re in need of a pumpkin shirt for an upcoming Halloween party, but you just don’t have the time to make one, you can purchase pumpkin shirts at the following online stores:
Be sure to double check a store’s minimum cart total to qualify for free shipping. Also, consider instore or curbside pickup to avoid shipping charges.
More Fall And Halloween Wine Cork Crafts:
Believe it or not, this isn’t our only fall or Halloween craft using wine corks. We have a couple more. There’s our Wine Cork Pumpkin, made from numerous wine corks, paint, and a hot glue gun. And there’s our Wine Cork Ghosts, made from a single wine cork, paint, and permanent markers.
DIY Wine Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt
If you’re looking for a fun fall (or Halloween) shirt, you can easily make one with our DIY Wine Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt tutorial.
Materials
- Pumpkin Stencil Printable *see below
- Painter’s tape
- Pencil
- Card stock
- T-shirt
- Scrap piece of cardboard
- Orange acrylic paint (three colors)
- Green acrylic paint
- Paper plate
- Two wine corks
Tools
- Scissors
Instructions
- Print out the printable. Cut out the pumpkin.
- Place it on top of a piece of card stock and trace the pumpkin on it.
- Cut out the pumpkin, making sure to leave the outside frame completely in tact, so you made a card stock stencil.
- Position the card stock stencil wherever you want the pumpkin to be.
- Tape it onto the shirt with painter’s tape to hold it in place.
- Stick a piece of thin cardboard behind the pumpkin, between the front and back of the shirt.
- Pour some acrylic paint onto a paper plate.
- Dip the wine cork into the orange paint, then stamp the pumpkin stencil.
- Continue, varying the orange acrylic paints, until you filled in the entire pumpkin.
- Dip the second wine cork (or just the opposite end of the wine cork you just used) into the green acrylic paint and stamp the stem at the top of the pumpkin.
- Let the shirt dry overnight before removing the painter’s tape, stencil, and the cardboard in the shirt.
Have you made this DIY Cork Stamped Pumpkin T-Shirt? Let us know how it went in the comments.
Heather
Wednesday 27th of September 2023
What a clever and cute idea! I love the use of wine corks as paint stamps!
Terri S
Sunday 6th of March 2016
I love the pumpkin t-shirt! So cute! Thank you for sharing.