Restoring Vintage Blow Molds for the Holidays

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How to Restore Vintage Holiday Blow Molds

I love me a vintage holiday blow mold. They stand out from the sea of yard inflatables (I have those, too), and they are just nostalgic. But for all the memories they evoke of decades gone by, holiday blow molds are not as easy as yard inflatables to maintain. That's just the truth. 

Sun exposure can fade the paint to the palest shades; they can crack, and let's be honest, they are cumbersome to store. That's why vintage holiday blow molds need to be restored from time to time. I restored two vintage blow molds for the holidays: a snowman for Christmas and a pumpkin for Halloween.



Refreshing a Christmas Blow Mold

Much like Frosty the Snowman needed the lousy magician's magic hat to come back to life, my vintage snowman blow mold needed new paint to shine with life again. Having very little experience painting anything detailed, I was nervous to touch the snowman. But just as Frosty braved the greenhouse to warm up Karen, I braved the ridges and bumps to brighten up the plastic snowman. In the end, refreshing a Christmas blow mold was so easy, I never needed to worry.

After giving Frosty a sponge bath, I set to work taping off sections with painter's tape. I also draped a drop cloth over Frosty's body and face to tackle his shiny black hat. Then, I painted larger sections by spraying the spray paint directly onto the blow mold. For more detailed spots, I used a brush, dipping the brush into spray paint that I sprayed little by little into the paint cap. I kept the colors essentially the same and simply refreshed the Christmas blow mold back to its original glory.

We gave our Frosty blow mold a prime spot above Jack Skellington on the garage. 



Halloween Blow Mold Makeover 


Our Halloween blow mold was cute, but not creepy. We don't do cutesy Halloween decorations. We are all about the creepy, the scary, the haunted, the horror villains. Our happy pumpkin -- let's call him "The Great Pumpkin" -- needed a Halloween blow mold makeover.

After giving The Great Pumpkin a wash, I used painter's tape to tape off his facial features. Then, I sprayed him as orange as the last horror villain occupying the White House. Next, I wanted to make the Great Pumpkin look less silly, more sinister. 


I tried painting over the smile lines. I tried changing the shape of his googly style eyes. But with the indentations of the blow mold features left behind, nothing looked right. In the end, the only paint change I made was painting the eyes all black instead of just the eyeballs.

To give my Halloween blow mold a makeover, I had to go a different direction; I decorated him. I covered him in a layer of fake spiderwebs and used the spiderwebs to camouflage the smile lines. (Spiderwebs are great for indoor use, dangerous to wildlife in outdoor use.) 

Then, I added a spooky spider crawling over one eye (my husband said to do it like eyelashes ala A Clockwork Orange).

For the finishing touch, I added a witch hat. The witch hat hides the friendly eyebrows and green stem and ties the pumpkin into my witchy porch decor. 


Although he's not the scariest pumpkin decoration around, (he's not even the scariest pumpkin in my collection) he definitely looks more at home among all our spooky Halloween decorations.

This Halloween, the Great Pumpkin occupies one window. My life-size Michael Myers fills the other. 

Enter if you dare.



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