Easy No-Carve Pumpkin Decorating

By The editors of MidwestLiving.com
Updated September 05, 2020
Credit: Adam Albright

Dress up your pumpkins without the mess of carving with our ideas for painted, glued and draped decorations.

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Glitter and glam

Credit: Adam Albright

Gold shimmers, faux black butterflies and metallic paint transform these pumpkins into eye-catching designs with no carving.

Black and white pumpkins with gold: Apply crafts paint for the background; let dry. Brush or dab on a shiny gold paint for accents. 

Gold pumpkin: Spray-paint a pumpkin with metallic gold. When dry, use adhesive dots to attach black crafts butterflies. (Look for butterflies online or at your local crafts store.) 

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Leafy look

For this easy fall craft, glue your favorite dried leaves on pumpkins in a variety of patterns.

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Black-and-orange beauties

Give a tabletop or mantel some Halloween flair with these stylish pumpkins. For the glitter stripes, glue sequin strips on pumpkins. To get the striated effect, spray pumpkins with glossy black paint (protect stems with tape). When dry, scratch vertical or hotizontal lines in the paint with a paring knife or key.

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Spooky string

Jazz up painted pumpkins using crafts nails and string for a spooky spiderweb effect.

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Lace works

Doilies used as stencils give a lacy look to orange pumpkins in the entry.

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Keyed pumpkins

Use antique keys (secured with long straight pins) to create seasonal messages, such as fall or eek, on your pumpkins for an easy DIY fall decoration.

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Fanciful pumpkins

Credit: Jason Donnelly.

Fluttering butterflies alight on pumpkins in this attractive fall centerpiece. For this easy fall craft, we spray-painted faux butterflies from a crafts store all black for a sophisticated look and then trimmed their wires to press into the pumpkins' skin. A harlequinlike mask adds whimsy.

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Gold-leaf pumpkin

This white-and-gold arrangement dresses up a porch or mantel. Coat real or crafts-store leaves with gold spray paint, then glue them to small white pumpkins (look for varieties such as 'Lumina' or Cotton Candy at your local farmers market or pumpkin patch). Paint small orange gourds gold to match the color scheme.

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Stenciled still lifes

Use leaf-shape stencils create to beautiful pumpkin displays. Wash and dry the pumpkins before painting. If overlapping stencil designs, make sure the first layer of paint is completely dry before you paint the next layer.

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Caterpillar pumpkins

A curving line of green-painted pumpkins forms a fun caterpillar. Decorate painted pumpkins with adhesive-felt dots, and add googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennae to the head.

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Owl mask

Make an owl for a woodland scene with two stacked pumpkins and a mask. Resources Animal Faces: 15 Punch-Out Masks by Pierre-Marie Valat; check on Amazon for availability.

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Plaid pumpkin

A pretty painted plaid design gives this pumpkin a rustic look.

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That's a wrap

Wrapping pumpkins and gourds in yarn gives them a modern, stylish feel.For pumpkins with just yarn, hot-glue ends of yarn and wrap pumpkins in shades desired. For pumpkin with Xs, use a yarn needle and accent yarn to make multiple cross-stich Xs and tuck in the tails. For burlap-wrapped pumpkin, cut a burlap band to fit around pumpkin, pull a few threads to fray the long edges, and use yarn and a yarn needle to make stitches along the length of burlap. Wrap finished piece around pumpkin and hot-glue in place.

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Go batty

Painted bats (or bats cut from black construction paper) look spooky on your doorstep or inside.

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Painted squirrel

Use our pattern to trace the outline of this bushy-tailed woodland creature, then fill in the shape with black acrylic paint.

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Button boo

A jarful of black buttons and a bottle of glue can give any pumpkin a ghostly message. Finish with a bow on top.

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Painted leaf art

Painted designs put the spotlight on your unusual squash or pumpkin cultivars, like this striking blue-green Jarrahdale pumpkin. Start with one that is clean and dry. Lightly sand the surface and apply paint sealer to prevent flaking. Create a design with stencils and acrylic paint, such as the leaf stencil and orange and white paints used here, then finish with a top-coat sealer.

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Candy corn pumpkins

Create these cute, almost-good-enough-to-eat pumpkins with spray paint.

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Light touch

Just a bit of pattern enhances this white 'Lumina' pumpkin; simple black accents look great on orange pumpkins, too.

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Painted mice

Black- or orange-painted mice skitter across pumpkins.

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Creepy mantel

We can't resist a little skin-crawling fun! Plastic spiders wander over pumpkins draped in ripped cheesecloth. "Hairy" cording feels a bit like a spider's trail on another. Add a faux crow, and you've set the proper spooky mood for Halloween.

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Raven's place

A raven in a cage sparkling with glued-on and dangling jewels lends an eerie tone to this white pumpkin. We used adhesive-backed vinyl to create the scene, but paint would work, too.

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Cool cat

A painted black cat chases three mice on pumpkins lined up atop an outdoor wall. Get shapes from clipartguide.com or another website. Print, cut out, and tape to pumpkin. Trace around shape, remove paper, then paint inside your lines.

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Construction zone

We created faces with eyes, mouths, noses and eyebrows cut from black construction paper and glued to pumpkins. If you want to make a whole scene, use construction paper to make a fence, moon and crows behind your pumpkins; attach with removable double-side tape or temporary adhesive that won't damage your walls.

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By The editors of MidwestLiving.com