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14 Easy NO-CARVE Pumpkin Painting Ideas (DIY)

Oct 31, 20182 min read

Updated: Jan 2, 2019



Our family loves PAINTING pumpkins for Halloween! We like to carve them too, but we have become huge fans of painting them for the past few years. Our kids get really creative coming up with fun new ways to paint our pumpkins. There are 3 main reasons why I personally prefer painting over carving:

1) My kids get to be part of the process from beginning to end. When we carve pumpkins, my kids design the look and pull out the gooey seeds, but my husband and I end up cutting it up for them because the idea of giving little kids cutting tools to do it themselves sounds a bit too scary, even if it's Halloween! Plus, removing the gooey seeds is a hit or miss in our family. Some kids love it, other kids hate it. When they hate it, we end up having to do it. And I hate it! However, with painting, the kids don't need to remove the gooey stuff and they get to do all the painting themselves, so less work for us. 2) Painted pumpkins last longer than carved ones. If you carve them, they rot after a few days, but if you paint them, they can last for months! I painted a Jack Skeleton one year and transitioned him easily into our Christmas decor by adding a Santa hat on him. He lasted all through Christmas, but sadly I had to get rid of him in January even though he still looked perfect. 3) Painting is relaxing! We turn on some Halloween music, setup the paints and brushes, and go for it. No gooey fingers from pumpkin guts and no pumpkin seeds all over the floor. Just time to chill and get creative. It occupies the kids for some time and hubby and I love to jump in there and paint a few of our own too.


Here are a few of our family's favorites that we've made over the years.

1. JACK SKELETON

I painted this for Halloween last year. What I love about painting pumpkins versus carving them, is that they last longer, so I carried this design into our Christmas decor by putting a Santa hat on him! It gave great "Nightmare Before Christmas" vibes. I loved how I was able to easily transition it from my Halloween decor into my Christmas decor!

2. ANGRY BIRD

We had a small pumpkin laying around, so I painted it to look like an angry bird!

3. ORANGE M&M

This simple design only required white and black paint because the pumpkin itself gave the orange M&M his color. It's a fun and easy design anyone can do!

4. EYEBALL

My husband painted this one. I love how it turned out!

5. SLEEPING BABY

I wanted a pumpkin to represent our youngest at the time. He was only 2 months old when Halloween came around, so I decided to paint a pumpkin that looked like him. He happened to be sleeping in his Mamaroo next to me while we were painting, so I drew his sleeping little face, along with his favorite binky.

6. HARRY POTTER

A couple Halloweens ago, my daughter started reading the Harry Potter series. So, of course she had to turn him into a pumpkin. I think she did a great job!

7. POKEBALL

This was during my son's Pokemon stage. He was only 4 at the time, so we penciled in boundary lines and he just painted it all in to match a pokeball. I think he did a pretty good job staying in the lines!

8. DONUT


9. MUMMY


10. ZOMBIE

My husband painted this pumpkin. I hate zombies, so of course he had to make one. -_- Even though I don't like zombies, I loved his! He did a great job with the color combos and I love how he also painted the stem! He made an awesome looking zombie!

11. FRANKENSTEIN

My husband was obviously going through all the green paints. He also made this Frankenstein pumpkin the same year he did the zombie one.

12. PAINTED JACK-O-LANTERN WITH MY SON'S HANDPRINTS

*You can find a tutorial I wrote on how you can carve your child's 1st pumpkin using their hands and feet here.

I traced my son's hands and used them as the outline for this cute little pumpkin's eyes. I wrote a tutorial on how you too can make you child's first pumpkin extra special. Search for it in my blog posts!

13. MINNIE MOUSE

My daughter is a huge disney fan, so she painted her own minnie mouse. She also used her own minnie mouse ears to give it that extra touch!

14. EMOJI

Sorry the image quality is so poor, but this shows an emoji design I painted a couple years ago. It was pretty straight forward. You can easily turn any pumpkin into your favorite emoji!

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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