Unique Pumpkin Decorating Ideas Without Carving

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60+ Easy and Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas to Try This Halloween

Say goodbye to the messiness of pumpkin carving, and hello to these easy no-carve designs.

framed cotton doilies with plastic spiders doily in frame pumpkin with black doily, painted dots, and spider

STEVE GIRALT

Jack-o'-lanterns are the best part of Halloween decorating, but if your carving skills are subpar, you're worried about your kids handling sharp tools, or you simply don't have the time to deal with scooping out pumpkin guts, you can still create a winning pumpkin for Halloween. All you need is an uncarved pumpkin, little inspiration, and a bucket full of craft supplies.

From painted pumpkins that would fit right in at a modern Halloween wedding, to funny pumpkin faces that kids will love creating, adults and children alike will love these easy, no-carve pumpkin decorating ideas. So, what can you use to decorate a pumpkin? The sky's the limit: pom poms, paint, glitter, fake spiders, cobwebs, twinkle lights, rickrack — there's pretty much nothing you can't use to decorate your gourds this fall. Ahead you'll find all kinds of ideas for decorating big and mini pumpkins, whether you're up for some light carving work or just want to keep it simple with a few well-placed stickers. Up for more Halloween craft ideas? Check out our favorite Halloween crafts for kids, our free Halloween pumpkin stencils, and the best DIY costume ideas.

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Owl Pumpkin

Stack two French heirloom pumpkins atop one another, and create eyes with pine cones. Use leaves as feathers!

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Spiderweb Pumpkin

Print the template, place over doily, and cut along lines with craft knife. Apply to pumpkin with decoupage glue, cutting notches around edge so it lies flat. Use glue dot to attach plastic spider.

SHOP MOD PODGE

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Candy Corn Button Pumpkins

Cut the tops off of two larger pumpkins, then stack them atop one another. Top them off with a smaller pumpkin, stem still attached. Grab your glue gun, and start attaching various sizes of buttons to create the shape of a piece of candy corn across all three gourds.

SHOP BUTTONS

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Silhouette Pumpkin

Print out a silhouette on regular paper, cut it out, paint it whatever color you'd like, then attach it to the pumpkin with glue or double-sided tape. To add an extra touch, grab any lace you have laying around the house and use it as a frame around the silhouette cut-out

Get the free Silhouette Pumpkin stencil.

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Black Widow Pumpkin

Few creatures are as Halloween-y as spiders with all of their eight-legged creepiness. Use tweezers and the adhesive to secure the sequins to the pumpkin.

SHOP BLACK SEQUINS

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'Hello Fall' Decal

Keep your Halloween decoration out for a little longer with this fall-friendly decal that you can just stick on a pumpkin.

SHOP PUMPKIN DECALS

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Mummy Dearest Pumpkin

Though this cool little design does require a little cutting, it's not technically carving. Start by painting your pumpkin white (unless you bought a white pumpkin, in which case, go onto the next step). Draw any sort of wrap design on it, and then etch the lines with a linoleum-cutting tool. Glue googly eyes onto a couple Ping-Pong balls and draw red veins. Finally, cut out the eye sockets so that the balls fit inside of it.

SHOP PING PONG BALLS

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Pile on the Plaid

Fall means there's plaid just about everywhere, and that includes your pumpkins! Get yourself some orange and white pumpkins and use duct tape to paint on the cozy designs.

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Spooky and Sparkly Pumpkin

Hot-glue three long strips of ¼-inch glittered ribbon to a medium white pumpkin to create radial threads of web. Measure, cut, and glue 12 shorter ribbon strips to complete the web. For spider legs, cut eight 1-inch to 1½-inch pieces of 12-gauge gold aluminum wire; bend each and hot-glue to a ¾-inch gold stud for the spider body. Hot-glue spider body in place and add a small stud for the spider head.

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Candy Jar Mini Pumpkins

Fill clear jars with candy. Decorate small to medium pumpkins with rickrack, googly eyes, buttons, felt, and zippers to create features and wardrobe. Use pins and hot glue to attach. For baseball cap, cut a 1 1/2" Styrofoam ball in half. Cut four to five white felt triangles to form dome and a semicircle for brim. Attach with glue and add rickrack for embellishment.

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What a Hoot Pumpkin

Place a smaller green pumpkin on a larger green pumpkin. Hot-glue on leaves and pine cones for eyes, brows, wings, and breastplate, and a popcorn kernel for each pupil.

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Candy Clown Pumpkins

Make these candy cuties by hot-gluing pieces of Halloween candy to mini white pumpkins. Make the feet and ears out of foam sheets.

SHOP FOAM SHEETS

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Subtle Shimmer Pumpkins

For a sophisticated front porch display, or romantic altar decorations for a fall wedding, arrange uncarved pumpkins of various sizes on steps and in terracotta pots. Cover a select few with glitter blast spray paint.

SHOP GLITTER BLAST SPRAY PAINT

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Troll Pumpkins

For this motley crew, bumpy, odd-shaped gourds take center stage. To make eyeballs, cut small Styrofoam balls in half, then hot-glue hard candy in the center; attach with pins or hot glue. Hollow out gourds for ears. Use twigs for teeth and legs.

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Splatter Paint Pumpkins

Keep it lowkey with a simple arrangement of white pumpkins splattered with gold paint, arrange atop wheat on your mantel. Paint the stems gold too, for an extra sparkling touch.

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Toothpick Hedgehog

Turn a squash into a cute little hedgehog by sticking toothpicks all over the top. Add tiny acorns for eyes and a nose.

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Great Balls of Fire

Set your stoop ablaze by stringing white outdoor holiday lights around regular pumpkins. It's a simple way to set a spooky mood — and illuminate your walkway!

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Gold Widow

More dazzling than creepy-crawly, this spider queen deserves her own pedestal. Make the eyes with round studs and the mouth, lashes, and legs from 12-gauge aluminum wire.

SHOP ALUMINUM WIRE

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Easy Pumpkin Faces

Make use of the old magazine you have sitting around the house by cutting out eyes and mouths to use on your pumpkin. Simply use some craft glue to stick the faces on and voila! You've got yourself a funny pumpkin that took no time at all to make.

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Itty Bitty Bat Pumpkin

Paint any mini pumpkin all black, use pumpkin seeds for teeth with a hint of blood, of course, cut his ears and wings our of card stock and glue googly eyes on top of eye-shaped paper cutouts.

SHOP GOOGLY EYES

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String Light Pumpkin

Use highlighter to spell out BOO on a pumpkin. Outline letters with straight pins, leaving about a ½-inch of pin sticking out. Wrap LED copper string lights around pins; repeat two to three times. Tuck battery pack behind the pumpkin.

SHOP STRING LIGHTS

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Witchy-Witch Pumpkin

You can never go wrong with a witch theme when it comes to Halloween. Paint a witch silhouette on a white pumpkin, then cut out the middle of black doily, and hot glue the frame around your witch.

SHOP BLACK DOILIES

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Tangled Web

Cotton kitchen twine and few plastic spiders transform pumpkins from bright and cheery to creepy-crawly in a matter of minutes.

Get the Tangled Web tutorial.

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Monster Mash Pumpkins

All you need to make these stunning and spooky pumpkins is aluminum wire, your favorite paint colors, a few pumpkins, and the twigs falling around your house.

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Bewitched Pumpkin

If you've got a scrap piece of black cloth and a witch's hat sitting in your dress-up drawer, then you've got all you need to put together this adorable pumpkin creation.

SHOP FAKE EYELASHES

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Falling Leaves Pumpkin

This shiny design looks great on any pumpkin, but works especially well on a green heirloom pumpkin. Outline several maple leaves onto Fanci-Foil wrap and cut them out. Then use Mod Podge to adhere them to the pumpkin. To get the realistic leaf look, use a toothpick to draw on veins while the leaves are still drying.

SHOP FANCI-FOIL

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Go Dotty Pumpkin

Make tissue paper confetti with a circle craft punch, then adhere it to a pumpkin using Mod Podge.

SHOP CIRCLE CRAFT PUNCH

Lauren Matthews Group Digital Content Director Lauren, Good Housekeeping's digital director, has over 15 years of experience writing and editing beauty, lifestyle, home, health, and entertaining content for publications including Country Living, Woman's Day, Brides, and First for Women.

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