Easy No Carve Pumpkin Decorating Ideas for Kids

With Halloween right around the corner as I write this, you might be looking for some ways to decorate pumpkins for kids without carving. Whether you’re doing this as a classroom or at home, there are a lot of fun ways to decorate pumpkins that don’t require sharp instruments.

Painting: A couple of years ago my daughter decided she wanted to paint a scene on our pumpkin instead of carving. She’s a teen and legitimately an artist, so it turned out beautiful, but kids of any age and artistic skill level can paint a pumpkin (and we definitely have had some more chaotic versions over the years). If you’re looking for some specific ideas on painting pumpkins, this post from Parents has a view good ideas. I love the emojis and the mini pumpkins painted as doughnuts, shown above.

Add Accessories: Easy Peasy and Fun has a great collection of (mostly) simple painted pumpkins that are embellished in different ways to make them a little more fun. I love this little bat, which only requires painting the pumpkin black and adding embellishments made with construction paper.

Drawing: If you don’t want to get out the paint, using markers (or paint pens, or oil pastels) to draw on a pumpkin can also be a lot of fun. This is especially effective on a light-colored pumpkin. (The photo above is from Casolia, by the way.)

Stickers: It’s almost universal that kids love sticking stickers to things, so why not give them a pumpkin and whatever stickers you have lying around (seasonally appropriate ones or eyes would be great, but not essential) and let them go to town.

Googly eyes: Speaking of eyes, if you’ve got a supply of peel and stick googly eyes (or the patience to use glue), adding eyes to a pumpkin is a fun and easy way to make a pumpkin spooky with very little work. This version comes from She Wears Many Hats.

You can also combine any of these ideas, so start with painting, then add stickers and/or eyes and just keep building from there. Maybe throw in some feathers and your pumpkin will be all set for Thanksgiving, too.

How do you like to decorate pumpkins with kids? I’d love to hear your ideas!

One of the fun things about knitters is that we will use a holiday theme on any kind of project. From Easter bunny socks to Christmas sweaters, there’s no combination of holiday motif and knitwear genre we won’t combine.

Case in point: Halloween cowls.

This fun cowl from Sweet Vireo Designs features large carved pumpkins and little cats and skulls. It uses two colors of DK weight yarn and I love the multicolored yarn for the background color on this one. And the braids! So cute.

Spooky Season by Jocelyn Tunney (also on Ravelry) uses fingering weight yarn in two colors to make a design with crescent moons and eyes. There are two circumferences and two heights available so you can make it a neck hugger or a slightly bigger project if you like.

Make more moons with the Broom Riding Cowl from Vanessa Ewing Knits. This two color pattern looks extra fun with a multicolored yarn for the colorwork, but you can use a solid as well. It calls for DK weight yarn but there is also a fingering weight version if you have some yarn in your stash you want to use.

Jinx Made has another fun Halloween cowl, this time covered in skulls. South Philly Skulls uses DK weight yarn and comes in two lengths, and there’s also a matching hat pattern, both of which can be found on Ravelry.

The Ghost Stories cowl from Melissa Knit Wear is a two-color cowl with ghosts of different sizes on the body. It uses DK weight yarn, and average sized skeins will allow you to get two cowls out of two skeins. It also calls for stitch markers to help you keep your place in the chart.

Or stitch up a cowl with a giant bat on it. The Nightling Cowl from Jen Immer uses DK weight yarn in two colors and has moons and a large bat on it. This pattern can be found on Ravelry.

How about spooky trees? The Weirwood Cowl from Andrea Krüß-Anders is inspired by the weirwood trees in the Game of Thrones books, and is worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn. You can find this free pattern on Ravelry.

If a bandana cowl is more your thing, try Cowloween from Tellybean Knits (on Ravelry). This colorful design is worked from the top down and features pumpkins, ghosts and candy colored stripes, and is worked in a light fingering weight yarn. There are kid and adult sizes available.

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