A Pumpkin, My Daughter, and a Trip Home
- anartistslament
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
There are some creative traditions that quietly wait for us, no matter how many years pass.
It's pumpkin season at Michaels.
If there's one store I truly miss now that I live in Spain, it's Michaels Arts & Crafts. It was my go-to place for almost every creative project. If I couldn't find what I needed there for painting, I'd head to Jerry's Artarama. For fabric, there was always Joann's—though sadly, that's no longer an option.
But every July, something unexpected happened.
I would put aside my stretched canvases, paints, and even my iPad in favor of pumpkins.
Yes, you read that right.
Pumpkins. Artificial pumpkins.
For several weeks each summer, pumpkins became my canvas. As soon as Michaels rolled out their autumn displays, I'd be there, eagerly searching through bins of pumpkins in every imaginable size, shape, and color. It became a tradition I looked forward to every year.
This wasn't the first time a pumpkin had become part of my creative story. Years ago, what began as a pumpkin for my youngest daughter's senior-year drill team performance grew into an unexpected artistic tradition—one I wrote about in Pumpkins, Memory, and Making: From Cinderella to Sugar Skulls. I never imagined it would be another four years before I decorated one again.
Preparing to move to Spain meant packing up a studio, giving away supplies, and intentionally not adding to my collection of craft projects. Once we arrived, I quickly discovered that while Spain has its own wonderful traditions, wandering the aisles of Michaels looking for faux pumpkins simply wasn't one of them.
So when I planned a trip to Houston this summer to visit children and grandchildren, I quietly hoped for one small extra adventure.
A visit to Michaels.
Had I Missed It?
As my daughter and I crossed the parking lot toward the store, my eyes immediately searched for something that had become familiar over the years.
The pumpkin bins.
For as long as I could remember, large wire bins overflowing with pumpkins greeted shoppers outside the entrance each July. They were my unofficial announcement that autumn had arrived—at least inside a craft store.
But this time...
Nothing.
Instead, the bins were filled with clearance flowers.
My heart sank.
Had I come too late?
Had pumpkin season already come and gone?
As we stepped into the entrance foyer, I caught sight of a few Halloween decorations.
Then a few pumpkins.
Hope returned.
We hadn't missed it after all.
Once we entered the main aisle, there they were.
Not the enormous pumpkin displays I remembered, but two bins filled with enough pumpkins to make me smile.
Apparently, pumpkin season had simply moved indoors.
Choosing the Perfect Pumpkin
I asked my daughter to pick out a pumpkin, promising I'd decorate one just for her.
She first chose a bluish-green pumpkin, held it for a moment, then decided it wasn't quite right.
While she continued looking, I wandered around to the other side of the display.
That's when I found it.
The pumpkin faded from a soft peachy pink at the bottom into creamy ivory near the top, with gentle sage-green brushing surrounding the stem. It felt elegant instead of traditional—almost floral before a single flower had even been added.
I held it up.
Her response was immediate.
"Ooooooo! I like that!"
Decision made.
While we searched for flowers to complement her pumpkin, I found several other pumpkins I would have happily brought back to Spain. Unfortunately, my suitcase disagreed.
Then I spotted a couple of stacks of three tiny pumpkins—cream, gray-green, and yellow-orange.
They were exactly the right size to fit inside my backpack.
Apparently, creative problem-solving begins before the crafting does.
Making Something New
Back at my daughter's house, I unpacked the flowers, gathered my glue gun, and settled in to create my first designer pumpkin in four years.
Partway through, my daughter looked at the flowers and pumpkin together and said something that made me pause.
"I don't really have anything that goes with these colors."
She was right.
The blush pinks, peaches, creams, and soft sage greens didn't match her existing autumn decorations at all.
"Don't worry," I told her.
"We'll figure something out."
As the flowers slowly found their places around the pumpkin, I was reminded why I had fallen in love with decorating them in the first place.
There's no pattern.
No template.
Each flower suggests the next.
One bloom is tucked in a little deeper. Another turns ever so slightly. A sprig of berries fills an empty space. Tiny pumpkins appear almost as if they had always belonged there.
It's less like assembling a craft project and more like arranging a conversation between colors and textures.
The Perfect Place
When I finished, I carried the pumpkin into her living room and placed it on a cabinet beside the accent wall that houses the television and faux fireplace.
Then we both stood there for a second.
It didn't match her autumn decorations.
It matched her home.
The soft blushes and warm creams echoed the colors of her accent wall so naturally that it looked as though it had always belonged there.
Suddenly, it wasn't just an autumn decoration anymore.
It had become part of the room.
She wouldn't need to pack it away after Halloween.
She could enjoy it all year long.
The little stacks of pumpkins that came home with me now sit in Spain, waiting for their turn. I have a feeling this creative tradition has found its way into my new home after all.
Right Side: Every flower found its place one stem at a time. Back: Sometimes the back of a piece is just as beautiful as the front. Left Side: The finished pumpkin now has a permanent home in my daughter's living room.
Sometimes Traditions Wait Patiently
For a while, I wondered whether my pumpkin-decorating days had quietly ended when we moved to Spain.
As it turns out, they were simply waiting.
Waiting for a trip home.
Waiting for a visit with family.
Waiting for an afternoon spent wandering through Michael's with my daughter.
Waiting for one beautiful peach-and-cream pumpkin.
Sometimes we think we've left a creative tradition behind.
More often, life has simply asked us to set it aside for a season.
And sometimes, when the time is right, that tradition quietly welcomes us back—as if we'd never been away at all.
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