Halloween Pumpkin Carving & Decoration

Halloween Pumpkin Decorating and Prop Ideas

Pumpkin Wreath Chandeliers

Casually adorned with colorful fallen leaves, you can make a simple grapevine wreath that is illuminated by tea lights inside mini-pumpkin holders. Suspended from a ceiling hook, it gives a warm, rustic atmosphere for Halloween or just fall decorating.

Halloween Pumpkin Punch Bowl Prop

Rinse the outside of your pumpkin and cut in half. Clean out seeds and guts. Using a spoon scrape more away from the pumpkin’s inside if necessary to make sure your bowl will fit snug inside your pumpkin. Add 2 cracked glow sticks to the bottom of your pumpkin to make your witches brew glow.

Carving Your Pumpkin

Halloween pumpkins are usually carved, so they can be used as lanterns. Carving a pumpkin can be as simple as creating a couple of triangular eyes and a mouth, or, if you are feeling adventurous, you can make a more complex pumpkin lantern intricate features or other patterns, such as cats, spiders, ghosts, etc, or even non-Halloween motifs. To carve your pumpkin, cut off the top (if you're going to illuminate it with a candle) or the bottom (to provide access for an electric light cord), scrape out the flesh, draw your design onto the surface of the pumpkin, and cut around the outlines with a sharp knife or other carving tool. You might find it useful to pare the interior surface of the pumpkin back in the areas you will be cutting. Your pumpkin is then ready to be lit up. You can either design your own pumpkin carving pattern, or you can use one of the many that are available (very often for for free) online.

Painting

Of course painting pumpkins is an old idea, but you can always freshen up an old idea with new techniques. You can make stencils out of cardboard and let your kids use the stencils to make pumpkin faces. Sponge paints work well with pumpkins and you can cut shapes out of inexpensive dollar store sponges. You can also just fancy up the paints by buying glitter paints, glow in the dark paints or neon paints.

Pumpkin Embellishment

There are other ways to decorate pumpkins in addition to painting and carving. You can make any pumpkin into a beautiful Halloween centrepiece by embellishing it with decorative items such as sequins, beads, glitter, ribbons, streamers, pieces of fabric, you get the idea! Embellishments of this type can also be used to further decorate a pumpkin that has already been carved or painted.

Pumpkin Collage

Making a nice pumpkin collage is another great way to decorate your pumpkin. Gather up loose buttons, plastic and foam shapes and other loose items for gluing. You can also use an old wig or yarn to add hair to your pumpkins. You can also have your kids cut eyes, noses and lips out of magazines to decorate their pumpkins collage style. Collages are a really easy way for really little ones to decorate their Halloween pumpkin nice and fancy.

Go Organic

Dress up your pumpkin using vegetables. Pre-slice veggies and then let your kids stick them into their pumpkin using toothpicks. You can have them make a carrot nose and broccoli hair, the possibilities are endless. This idea is best when you get your pumpkin close to Halloween since vegetables wilt. You just want to make certain your pumpkin isn't out in the warmth of the day for to long, night is best for veggie lanterns.

Make it a Sweetie

Using candy to decorate your pumpkins is fun and simple. Your kids will have tons of fun picking out candy to decorate their pumpkins. You can use Chiclets for the teeth, Gummy Worms for the hair and liquorish for lips. Of course those are just ideas, decorating with candy and other sweets can yield very colorful results. I have even heard of people using the type of icing that hardens to make pumpkin hair and other pumpkin features.