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Sometimes, painting pumpkins is a lot easier than actually carving them. Sure, there is a certain satisfaction out of squishing pumpkin guts in your hand, but when you have little ones, at what cost? The cleanup can be a nightmare and then you have at least one actively rotting pumpkin on your front porch for several weeks. Instead, choose from one of these pumpkin painting ideas to make things easier on everyone and still give you something to be creative with.
The second you cut into a pumpkin, it begins its rotting process. While that can still take a month or more to happen completely, it’s only a matter of time before the squirrels come to chomp on your poor carved pumpkin every morning at the crack of dawn. By refraining from cutting it at all, you can preserve its shelf life greatly and be festive in a different kind of way.
Younger kids are also a lot more likely to paint a pumpkin to their heart’s content rather than deal with watching you do all of the carving. And who wants to have to carve more than one pumpkin? That can legit me hard work and getting in the Halloween spirit isn’t supposed to involve an arm workout. Just don’t forget to be creative in designing the pumpkins like putting some Happy Halloween greetings at the background once it’s done.
To get you and the kids in the Halloween spirit, take advantage of one or more of these pumpkin painting ideas, or just use them as inspiration for your own.
1. Emoji Pumpkins
Kids love emojis. That’s just a fact of life. Regardless of which one they happen to adore this week, you can help your kids create one or all of these emoji pumpkins they are sure to love.
2. Vocal Pastel Pumpkins
Use simple pastel colors for the base color of your pumpkin and then carefully paint on classic Halloween sayings. The ending result will be totally festive.
3. Dipped Pumpkins
Dipping pumpkins in paint rather than using an actual brush can sometimes be a preferred method. Here, dipping is the method, but there are also ways to tape off the pumpkin before dipping.
4. Chalky Pumpkins
Use chalky paint to achieve a more matte tone on your painted pumpkins. It makes them more stylish than anything, but sometimes less is more.
5. Black And White Pumpkins
You can’t go wrong with the sleek and festive design of these simple black and white Halloween pumpkins with plenty of spiders thrown in the mix.
6. Galaxy Pumpkin
It will take a lot of practice and a good amount of patience to accomplish this more complicated pumpkin. If your older kids are up for it, however, encourage them to have at it because it’s definitely more of a one-of-a-kind design.
7. Black Cat Pumpkins
Black cats are one of those things synonymous with Halloween. Obviously making black cat-inspired pumpkins is the way to go for some kids.
8. Minion Pumpkins
What kid hasn’t loved one of the minion movies at some point. Help your kids bring their favorite nonsensical characters to like with these pumpkins.
9. Striped Pumpkins
With a little tape and paint, you can make your own striped designs on your pumpkin. Go with a complicated criss-cross pattern or simple up and down stripes and you’ll have a stylish pumpkin either way.
10. Donut Pumpkins
You need mini pumpkins and a little patience for this one. But since small pumpkins are easier for some kids to handle anyway, this works well for toddlers.
11. Tie-Dye Pumpkin
This one is probably best done outside, but your kids will have so much fun making a terrible mess as they tie-dye their pumpkins. And with this one, the pumpkins can be any size to make it fun.
Painting pumpkins isn’t a completely mess-free alternative to carving pumpkins by any means. You will still be left doing cleanup and hoping your kids didn’t stain their clothes. But it can be easier to deal with the fallout of painting pumpkins and kids who are too young to start carving can easily paint their own.
