While fun, carving pumpkins is a messy task and usually ends up with my husband being grumpy at having to clean up the mess. Plus my kids always want these exotic designs that our amateur pumpkin carving skills just can't do. Luckily, thanks to my dear friend Pinterest there are a ton of pumpkin decorating alternatives that don't involve pumpkin guts all over your house. Oh, and using mini-pumpkins is even more fun!
*I was unable to find white mini pumpkins so the first step was to use a white flat spray primer to get them all ready for painting and decorating.
Pumpkin Bats
These are so cute and easy!
- Paint the pumpkins black and let dry. I used acrylic paint and found one coat was all we needed.
- Using white paint (I used a white paint pen) draw on the eyes and mouth.
- Cut out wings from black cardstock and glue on to pumpkin.
Pumpkin Donuts
Using real sprinkles makes these look good enough to eat.
- Using the white pumpkin as the base, paint on the "icing" using whatever colors you love. I used pink and brown.
- While the paint is still wet add the real sprinkles so they stick once the paint the dries
Nail-Polish Pumpkins
These might be my favorite. I read that Sally Hansen nail polish works the best so that's what I went with. You can really get creative with different color combinations. While easy peasy for kids to do this I would recommend wearing gloves...and having some nail polish remover on hand. Just for fun I used one of the pumpkins I had painted black and it turned out really cool so you may want to try that, too!
- Make sure you have a bowl large enough to fill with water AND fully submerge the pumpkin in the water. Room temp water is all you need.
- Add a drizzle of various colors to the water. The colors will stay near the surface and you can use a stick to stir them a bit if desired.
- Dip the pumpkin into the water. The nail polish will adhere to it. Let dry.
