Pumpkin Decorating Ideas

You’ll love these pumpkin decorating ideas, especially if you’re anxious to get away from the same old toothy grin. These are fun and creative and even a little artsy. But don’t worry it’s easy too!

I’ve carved a pumpkin - Once! And then I swore I’d never do it again. What a mess and too much work. I like to make things easy and if at all possible avoid slimy, gooey messes.

So, I want to share with you some of the fantastic (if not frightful) pumpkin decorating ideas that I conjured up in my many attempts to avoid carving.

This first one is not only a creative and artsy little pumpkin, it’s a good decoration to have around all fall and even makes a great centerpiece for your Thanksgiving table. Just embellish with a swag of fall leaves and you’re done.

You can find the pattern below. Just print it out and follow the pictures. And don’t forget that as you print it you can adjust the size of the pattern you want. It’s one size fits all so depending on the size of your pumpkin you may need to adjust the size percentage of the print (you can usually do this with your print preview screen).

Once you have your print, place it on top of a piece of styrofoam and punch the holes out. I used an ice pick but a nail head works just as good.

If you don’t have styrofoam, use anything that you don’t mind getting holes in it. In other words, you don’t want to set this on the dining room table and punch holes all over.

When you have your holes punched out, place the pattern over the pumpkin and with a Sharpie, mark the holes. Now, this is much easier said than done so let me explain a little more. OK - you have a flat pattern and a round pumpkin, right? Not a good match. You are going to need to bend the pattern around the pumpkin. You may miss a few holes and you may skip some areas. That’s OK because when you pull the pattern back, you can fill in the blank areas with a few dots of your own. Just follow the pattern that’s in place.

Move the pattern around and mark up as many as you want. On this small pumpkin I used the pattern three times. One was at the very top, one started next to the one in the middle and a third one I tilted to it’s side and linked the other two pattern together. Don’t be shy about turning the pattern any way you want. It will mix things up and look much less ordered (which is good).

When you have all the dots in place, use a very small tip paint brush to dot on some craft acrylic paint on top of the sharpie marks. Be careful to work spinning the pumpkin away from where you are dotting the paint. You want to make sure you are not smearing the wet paint with your fingers as you rest them on the pumpkin while you paint. It’s even a good idea to do one part, let the paint dry and do another section until it’s all done.

From there put your own touches to it. You can paint some solid line swirls on it. Maybe you could paint a face on it and have the swirls accent that (a happy moon face would be cute).

If you really wanted to get creative, try to put little flat back gems on each dot. That’s one of my glamourous pumpkin decorating ideas for all you divas out there.

Well, here’s the pattern for these cute pumpkin decorating ideas.

If you like the the thought of using paint instead of carving then check out these Halloween Pumpkin Stencils for more pumpkin decorating ideas about painting a traditional face.

If that’s your bag then don’t miss the Free Pumpkin Carving Stencils for faces and other patterns.

Hey! Don’t forget that I (and everyone else) want to see your pumpkin decorating ideas. Just click on Stenciling Projects to get your masterpiece showcased here on this web site. Won’t that be exciting! Or if you have any questions or want to share information join in on the Stencil Blog. Well, I hope to hear from you soon.

Happy Stenciling,

Penny

For a similar project, go to Making Halloween Tin Can Lanterns!

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