Materials needed:

• Pumpkin
• Chalkboard paint (the spray paint is easiest)
• Acrylic Paint + skinny paint brush
• Liquid Chalk Pen
• Scotch tape
• Optional: Customized  stencil

Make sure to let your painted pumpkin dry overnight. While your waiting for it to dry, print a stencil from your computer (or by hand) of whatever you want the words to say around the countdown. For my pumpkin I decided on “Halloween is:” [#] “days away.”  Once your pumpkin is dry, trace the words onto the pumpkin with a pencil. Since I don’t want to erase these words each time I change the day count, I chose to paint over them with a white acrylic paint.

For the countdown, I used one of these liquid chalk pens. As you’ll notice, I didn’t use a stencil for the date, hence the slightly crooked 27. What I find easiest to change the date, is just a damp paper towel. The liquid chalk pens erase very well, but of course, regular school chalk can be used for the countdown as well – it just leaves behind a bit more residue.