Soften your fall décor with the velvety brilliance of Plush Pumpkins—because autumn decorations don’t have to be designed with only hard gourds, bristly hay bales and dried cornstalks. Let the imagination and creative talent of Minnesota business owner Monya Kampa plump up your fall floral arrangements, fireplace mantel display or table centerpiece with her beautiful handcrafted Plush Pumpkins.
Kampa grew up in New Jersey under the tutelage of an extremely creative mother. “My mother was always working on craft projects of some sort,” says Kampa. “She even made her own Fabergé-style eggs with real egg shells. I remember her being written up in the New York Times over 35 years ago.”
In 1999, a crafty Kampa stumbled upon a fabric pumpkin made with an actual pumpkin stem. Like her mother, she experimented with developing her own version. She says, “It took me about two years to perfect the design.” And they are perfect little pumpkins, made with lush velvet fabric and filled with rice to give them just the right weight and feel. Each pumpkin is topped with a naturally unique pumpkin stem.
What was first a hobby organically grew into a business for Kampa. First, she sold her Plush Pumpkins to friends and neighbors, then sold a few more through home boutiques. In 2008 she met Melinda Benham, owner of Garden Gate Flowers in Edina. Benham loved Kampa’s Plush Pumpkins and placed an order for 300. Kampa recalls thinking that order was huge and couldn’t imagine selling that many Plush Pumpkins. That year, Garden Gate Flowers sold approximately 2,000 Plush Pumpkins.
Both women were overwhelmed by the popularity of these precious little pumpkins. They’ve also enjoyed the great friendship that has blossomed. “She is amazing to me,” says Benham. “We share a sense of creativity and a passion for the Plush Pumpkin product. I’ve been a resource for her, providing client feedback and testing some of her newer items at Garden Gate Flowers. Once, I helped her design her Plush Pumpkin booth for her first gift show in Texas, and some New York women across the aisle assumed we were long-time friends. That’s how well we get along.”
Plush Pumpkins are still handmade in Minnesota. They’re just not all made by Kampa’s hands anymore, however. She employs crafters at her St. Paul studio and now sells Plush Pumpkins through approximately 200 distributers nationwide. The pumpkins are still designed around all-natural pumpkin stems that are harvested from contacts Kampa has made across the United States. The stems make each pumpkin one-of-a-kind. Some stems have a twisted piece of dried vine. Other stems might top two small pumpkins in a twinned grouping.
Newer products include plush acorns topped with burr oak acorn caps, plush mushrooms and even stem-topped plush hearts. The hearts were inspired by a northern Minnesota man whose wife loved her Plush Pumpkins so much that the man contacted Kampa and asked her to design something unique for his wife as a gift. The soft decorative hearts make great gifts for Valentine’s Day, anniversaries or as an added touch to sympathy floral arrangements.
Plush Pumpkins have been used as starting points for birthday gift baskets, and Benham says the Plush Pumpkin items are also very popular for incorporating into home décor floral arrangements; she once added a nest filled with velvety acorns to an arrangement, and their elegant cuteness adds a touch of creative panache. “Plush Pumpkins make an easy gift item,” says Benham. “Because you can always add to the mix of someone’s collection with a new and different piece.”
Plush Pumpkins come in a variety of rich colors, making them adaptable for a variety of decorating situations. So if you’re not a fan of the traditional orange associated with this time of year, but still want to decorate for fall, head down to Garden Gate Flowers and pick a peck of Plush Pumpkins in any color you like.
