Amazing Pumpkin Painting Ideas & Other No Carve Pumpkin Decorating Ideas

If you’re planning on making an uncarved Halloween pumpkin this year, you’ll love these unique pumpkin painting ideas, from roaring dino pumpkins to simple emoji pumpkins. Lots of cute and spooky ideas!

Browse through these pumpkin decorating ideas and we’re sure you won’t be able to pick just one this year.

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Decorating pumpkins is one of the funnest things about Halloween. While classically carved pumpkins look great, especially when lit with a candle, uncarved pumpkins are becoming increasingly popular. Why? They are easy to make and leave a lot of room for creativity.

You can use a real pumpkin or a craft pumpkin (real ones are great, but you can use the craft pumpkins again next year and add to your painted pumpkin collection).

We share a collection of free pumpkin carving and painting ideas to boost your creativity as there are a million ways to decorate them.

Tip: How to paint a pumpkin – what kind of paint to use for pumpkins?

If you need to cover the entire pumpkin with paint, spray paint as well as craft paints will do.

Small areas are best painted with acrylic craft paints. This type of color will not fade in the rain if you plan on displaying your painted pumpkins outdoors.

Pumpkin painting ideas

Scarecrow Pumpkin

Since fall is scarecrow season, this seems like a natural choice. It is not necessary to paint the whole pumpkin.

Hair can be made of felt or tissue paper (napkins :)), paint the face or use felt. Finally find an old straw hat, decorate it with a leaf or sunflower and the pumpkin is ready to be displayed.

T-rex dinosaur pumpkin decoration idea

This Hatching Tyrannosaurus Dinosaur Egg Pumpkin is a clever idea! If you have an old toy dinosaur laying around and don’t know what to do with it, here’s how to do it. Directed by Tiffany Leckemby

DIY unicorn pumpkin

Unicorns have been very popular lately and the same goes for pumpkin decorations. There are many ways to decorate them: we painted the pumpkin white, added red cheeks and closed eyes (with eyelashes, of course).

The mane is tissue paper and the horn and ears are from a vintage Halloween unicorn costume headband. Add floral details to make things even more magical.

Rainbow Fish Pumpkin Decorating Idea

Ever since I first read The Rainbow Fish, it has been my favorite childhood book to this day. Just like the book, this decorated pumpkin looks magical. The shiny, glittering scales are mesmerizing, aren’t they? Manufactured by Molly Reed.

With a pumpkin decoration idea

Make a fun wicked witch! To make this witch, we painted the pumpkin green and let the paint dry completely. The hair is made of tissue paper (towels), felt also works. If you are displaying the pumpkin indoors, you can make the hat out of paper; Otherwise, we recommend a store-bought hat (or a cloth hat). We used a green pom pom for the nose which, if you ask us, makes all the difference to this pumpkin painting idea.

cactus gourd

Pumpkin Bat

Pikachu pumpkin

If you have a Pokémon lover at home, why not do something this Halloween? You won’t be able to catch them all (right?), but making a few will definitely be fun. For Pikachu, paint the pumpkin yellow acrylic paint or spray paint yellow. For an indoor pumpkin, you can use construction paper to add the details (and a hot glue gun to glue them together).

lion decoration idea

Lion is another simple idea, you can use the natural color or paint the pumpkin yellow. The mane is made of tissue paper or felt and the ears are also made of felt.

The friendly clown pumpkin painting idea

Clowns are special characters: you can turn them into a very cute one or into a nightmare one. And it’s very easy to turn it into a nightmare. We think closed eyes with eyelashes are the safest choice when it comes to making your clown look cute and friendly.

Pumpkin Emoji Decoration

Everyone loves emojis! Why not make your favorite Halloween pumpkin this year? We went with the heart eyes emoji, but any of these would look incredibly cute. Only paint is needed to make it, which is why this is one of the best pumpkin painting ideas.

Fox Pumpkin Decorating Idea

One of the cutest no-carving pumpkin decorating ideas if you’re anything like us! Make the face, ears and tail out of felt so it’s a bit fuzzy. A great project that is not scary for kids.

chicken idea

If you made a fox, why not make the chicken too?

mummy

Do you have old bandages and are you looking for a clever way to recycle them? Make a mummy! This is perfect for Halloween.

Frankenstein’s monster

Another idea for a Halloween monster. Paint the pumpkin green and wait for the paint to dry. Once dry, continue with black paint for the hair, eyes, and other details of Frankenstein’s monster.

Ninja turtle

Paint the pumpkin green. Paint the whites for the eyes. Cut out a strip of orange, purple, red or blue fabric and also cut holes for the eyes. Tie the fabric to the pumpkin. Paint black for the eyes.

fairy house

Have fun creating awesome pumpkin designs!

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