How to decorate your pumpkin: 10 easy no-carve ideas
Meet the newest Halloween trend: Decorating pumpkins.
And here’s why this trend is here to stay. Decorating instead of carving means less mess (no scooping pumpkin guts) and less stress (no big knives near little hands). Best of all, the whole thing stays fresh till you’re ready to eat it! So after the spooky festivities, you can cook up a pumpkin feast – double the use from a single pumpkin. Every year millions of pumpkins end up in the bin, carved and uneaten, let’s make sure they make it to the dinner table this year?
Here are 10 easy peasy pumpkin squeezy ways to decorate yours.
What better way to combine sweet treats at Halloween than decorating your munchkin pumpkin with candy? Toothpicks studded with jelly, chewy or squishy sweets make an easy combo to decorate your pumpkins this year. Get poking, and use your sweets to make a scary face.
Your pumpkin might get baked into a cake later, but the icing can come now! Icing pens and sprinkles are an easy way to add flair to your pumpkin, come in all different colours, and can help you be quite detailed too! You could even mix up your own icing at home (just icing sugar and a splash of water!) & pipe it with a zip lock bag for a cheaper alternative – go for a thicker mix so it doesn’t drip, and hardens quicker.
This is the easiest one out there. Simply use some toilet paper/gauze to wrap around your pumpkin, and BOO, it’s a mummy! Just add googly eyes or draw and cut out some paper ones.
Simple! Glue + pompoms. Stick em all over. Looks cooler than you might think!
Like the pom poms, but more glam? Get shiny things like gems and beads, to bedazzle your pumpkin with. It could be in a pattern, or just adding shine! Oh, edible glitter is a thing too...
Consider your inner child activated! Stickers are always nostalgic for us. This is another incredibly easy one to try, just use ready made sticker packs to decorate your pumpkin! You could use spooky themed ones, shapes, your favourite characters, whatever you like!
Use edible paints, or normal (non toxic) paints if you’re peeling the pumpkin before cooking, and the pumpkin is your canvas! You could paint a Halloween scene, a favourite character, a spooky welcoming or warning message to trick or treaters... get creative!
You can guess what to do... but just in case you didn’t! Use coloured paper, scrapbooking paper, wrapping paper or even go collagey with magazine paper, and simply cut out circles in all different sizes or all the same. Then stick them on! Equally spaced, overlapping, and it looks pretty cool once you fill up the whole pumpkin!
A pumpkin is round... kind of like a head. So, it works well to turn into all kinds of faces! A mouse, a cat, and dog, and elephant... simply cut out paper details for eyes, noses, ears, and stick them on with double sided tape or blue tac. An easy one with endless options! If you’ve got crafting feathers, you could try making birds too!
Follow the natural curves of your pumpkins body (oo la la) with some colourful ribbons, to create a glamourous striped pumpkin that looks good enough to unwrap – and eat!
Top tip: buy to eat
Sometimes, size does matter! Carving pumpkins are often grown for size, rather than taste, so they’re often waterier and more fibery. As a general rule, smaller the sweeter, so choose quality over quantity and buy (and decorate) to eat.
How to eat your pumpkin
When the decorating’s all done, Halloween’s over and you’re feeling peckish.... here’s how to eat your pumpkin. Simply pick, wipe or wash off the decorations and poof, like Cinderella’s carriage it’s turned back into a humble pumpkin. You can peel the whole thing if you’re unsure, but otherwise it’s good to go!
And we’ve got a bumper book of pumpkin recipes for you, from warming curries to pumpkin brownies.
What to wear to scare?
Did you know most readymade Halloween costumes are made from plastic? Extend the creative vibes to your costume this year with these easy and sustainable ideas.
Pumpkeen for more?
Now you've got your pumpkin decorated, check out the #EatYourPumpkin campaign. We've got plenty of tricks and some tasty treats for Halloween.