Halloween is almost here, it’s my favorite time of year; the costumes, the candy, the decorations and the pumpkins. Festive colors and shades of orange are sprung about and put a smile on my face. My favorite part is all the pumpkin patches and apple cider. Pumpkin picking can be made into a long and wonderful day then you have all these options of what to do with your pumpkin. How to decorate a pumpkin you ask? You can carve it, paint it or just simply decorate it with anything you wish.

Carving pumpkins is always a tradition for me. When I was younger all I did was the simple face with two triangle eyes and a squiggly mouth, but now that I’m older, I’m getting more creative. I’ve started buying those pumpkin carving kits, although it’s considered “cheating” it’s not all that easy to do. The package comes with this tiny little carving knife which takes forever to actually cut your pieces out. I like making some kind of crazy pattern like a cat face or a ghost with a house in the background. It’s time consuming, but it makes for a great decorative piece once you put a candle inside.

My favorite way to decorate a pumpkin is to paint it AND add some decorations to it. I love this bug painted pumpkin. You need a couple pumpkins for this one as you stack them on top of each other. You also need some chenille stems curled for antennae, googly eyes, butterfly wings and acrylics to make it sparkle and shine. It’s really quite easy to make, just be sure you let everything dry before moving on to the next step:

1. Prime pumpkins with Multi-Purpose Sealer.

2. Basecoat round pumpkin (the bottom pumpkin) with Razzle Berry and wide bottom pumpkin with Purple Cow.

3. Mix small amount of Razzle Berry into Purple Cow. Paint oval on Purple Cow pumpkin for nose.

4. Use liner brush and Lamp Black to paint mouth.

5. Mist pumpkins with Americana Matte Spray Sealer.

6. Position and adhere googly eyes and chenille stem antennae.

7. Stick pumpkins together.

8. Tie or glue wings onto back of body.

Some other ways to paint and decorate a pumpkin is to make something crazy with it like a witch teapot. This is such a neat way to decorate your festive pumpkin. It’s hard to tell if it’s actually a pumpkin or a teapot. Once again, you can use googly eyes, paints and foam letters. This witch pumpkin takes a while to put together, but once it’s done, all your trick-or-treaters will be intrigued.

Don’t think that because you went to a pumpkin patch you have to actually carve your pumpkin. There are plenty of other things you can do with it.

You can:
1. Make a pumpkin silhouette
2. Paint a robot or mod pumpkin
3. Stack your pumpkins creating an owl or fanged cat
4. Or you don’t even have to use real pumpkins; you can decorate foam pumpkins or mosaic pumpkins.

Check out all the no-carve pumpkin ideas here!