DIY Non-Carving Pumpkin Decorating Ideas

Fall Craft: Non-Carving Pumpkin Decorating Ideas!

Hello everyone! Fall is here and it happens to be my favorite season. My younger sister attends Cal Poly Pomona in Southern California where she is majoring in Animal Science (she is so smart!). Cal Poly Pomona is not only a beautiful school, but a very resourceful one! The students along with staff work together to grow produce that they then sell at their Farm Store. It a very agriculture based school and looks lovely particularly in the fall. Speaking of the fall, the school holds a Pumpkin Festival each year where there is a lot of fun activities. My sisters and I attended and picked out some pumpkins.

With lots of pumpkins and some time set aside, we worked together to design some fun non-carving pumpkin decorations. Keep reading if you want to see what we came up with.

Let’s get started!

List of Materials:

*Keep in mind that you can use anything and everything to decorate your pumpkin. You do not by any means need all the things I list, but if you would like to recreate a design I did then you will need similar materials.*

-Pumpkins (of course!)

-Paint ( I used black, gold, copper and white)

-Sharpies or Paint pens (I used black and silver)

-Glitter (I used white, gold and red)

-Spray Glue

-Rhinestones (silver diamond looking ones and flat copper ones that I got a the Dollar Store)

-Hot Glue Gun

-Paint Brushes and Sponges (the circle ones were very useful!)

-Scrap Paper

-Scotch Tape

Here are each of my designs and some tips on how to recreate them:

To achieve this design, I started with a silver sharpie and wrote out "HELLO fall" Then, I used a circle sponge and white paint to create dots all over the pumpkin. I then used spray glue on the top of the pumpkin to adhere white glitter. Lastly, I used a hot glue gun to glue the little diamonds to the ends of the lettering.

To achieve this design, I did a very similar process as the last one. I wrote out "HAPPY halloween" with a black sharpie and then used a circle sponge and copper and gold paint to create dots all over the pumpkin. Again, I used the spray glue on top to adhere gold glitter. And to finish it off, I used a hot glue gun to glue some copper rhinestones to the end of the flared out lettering.

For this design, I started with a circle sponge and black paint to create the spider's head. Then I used the same circle sponge to create the body, and just used the edge of the sponge to enlarge the overall shape. Next. I used white paint and a small paint brush to freehand a web at the top of the pumpkin. I allowed all the paint to dry (about an hour) and then cut out a circle from a piece of paper that would cover the spider design. I gently taped the paper over the spider and then sprayed glue around the paper and sprinkled on red glitter. Lastly, I removed the taped paper and the design was complete!

For this last design, I started by using tape as a guideline for how large I wanted the lettering. I placed two strips of tape along the pumpkin's width, one was about an inch from the top and the second was two inches from the bottom. Then I started to free hand "BOO" with a small paint brush and gold paint. Once I was happy with the size of each letter, I removed the tape and filled in any spaces that still weren't opaque in color. Then, I free handed the white outline with white paint and the same paintbrush. Once the paint was completely dry, I did a similar process to the spider pumpkin to achieve the surrounding white glitter.