Skip to Content

21 No-Carve Pumpkin Ideas for Kids

Sharing is caring!

Looking for no-carve pumpkin ideas for kids? This is a collection of the best pumpkin decorating solutions that involve no carving tools.

What can I use to decorate a pumpkin without carving? you ask.

Paint, tape, leaves, crayons, googly eyes or tissue paper can successfully replace the carving knife.

And this is great particularly if you spend Halloween with young kids (toddlers, preschoolers or kindergartners) and their little hands are eager to help you.

No-carve pumpkin ideas for kids to make this Halloween. Great for preschoolers and toddlers.

Carving pumpkins has never been my thing. Even if it were I would have to put the carving tools away for a few years. Decorating the house for Halloween is an activity that we enjoy as a family and having my little ones around sharp carving knives and saws would make me nervous.

Instead we chose to paint our pumpkins. It’s a kid-friendly and fun for everyone activity that gets the entire family in the Halloween spirit.

No-carve pumpkin ideas for kids to make this Halloween: paint, glue, draw but no carving tools needed

More Halloween Activities for Kids

Although I love this painted pumpkin tradition that I started a few years back, I have to say I was curious to see how many other ways to decorate pumpkins with young kids are out there. Guess what? I came across tons of creative ideas. So many in fact that it got me eager to try something new this fall. (I’ll still paint one pumpkin, though)

You may not turn your pumpkin into a Jack-O-Lantern this year, but this doesn’t mean you can’t have a few around the house. Here you can find a nice collection of 43 Jack’O’Lantern crafts.

Also check out some of my favorite Halloween crafts for kids: (click on the photos to see the tutorials)

No-carve Pumpkin Ideas for Kids

Ways for kids to decorate pumpkins without carving

This post contains affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you.

1. Glue orange buttons of different sizes and styles on a white pumpkin, add a black ribbon and you got yourself a button pumpkin.

2. Make an adorable leaf pumpkin with sisal rope, large wood beads and foam leaves.

3. Sometimes a Sharpie is all you need to decorate pumpkins. You can use small white real or plastic pumpkins or, if you can’t find white ones, go with orange pumpkins and make sure to paint them white first. Then use your imagination to turn them into cute, spooky or funny sharpie pumpkins.

4. We all love confetti. It’s colorful, joyful, festive. Why not use a bag of confetti to make confetti pumpkins?

No-carve pumpkin ideas for kids: googly eyes, potato heads, masks

5. All you need to decorate a googly eye pumpkin is a pumpkin and a bag of self-adhesive googly eyes of different sizes . You can also try glow in the dark googly eyes or mixed colors googly eyes.

6. Do you have any magazines lying around? Look for eyes, mouth and maybe a nose, cut them out and glue them to create a face pumpkin.

7. Make a mask pumpkin with a mask that you decorate first with pom-poms, feathers and stickers.

8. Dig into your kid’s toy bin for Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and turn your pumpkins into Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin Heads.

9. No Potato Head? No worries, you can use instead a pair of funny glasses and plastic lips to create a lady and her date pumpkins.

No-carve pumpkin ideas for kids: mummy, tissue painted, leaves and candy corn

10. Make mummy pumpkins with the help of  two big googly eyes and duck tape or toilet paper.

11. This candy corn pumpkin will need adult supervision as it requires the use of a hot glue gun.

12. The tissue painted pumpkin is similar to the confetti pumpkin, with the difference that kids glue pieces of torn tissue paper to the pumpkins instead of tissue paper confetti.

13. I love the idea of using natural items to decorate the pumpkins, in this case to make leaf pumpkins..

No-carve pumpkin ideas for kids: spider web, melted crayons and black pumpkins

14. Kitchen cotton twine and plastic spiders will transform your pumpkin into a spider web pumpkin.

15. Wrap washi tape all around pumpkins, vertically, horizontally, any direction you want and create beautiful washi tape pumpkins.

16. Have you ever wondered what to do with all your kids’ crayons? They have tons and certainly don’t use them all. Now you can melt them to decorate pumpkins. Use a rainbow of crayons or just orange and yellow for a candy corn look. Melted crayon pumpkins are easy and fun.

17. Cut out eyes and mouth from colored construction paper or card stock to make a few scary face pumpkins.

No-carve pumpkin ideas for kids: owls, polka dots, photo collages and monogram

18. The owl pumpkins are made with felt and pipe cleaners (for feet). I love working with felt and its advantage over construction paper is that , if you keep the pumpkins outside while raining, the felt won’t be torn when wet.

19. Create cheerful polka dot pumpkins with the help of neon round stickers.

20. What a special photo pumpkin! Let your child choose his / her favorite pictures or use family pictures.

21. There are so many ways children can paint a pumpkin. This monogrammed pumpkin is just one of them.

Faux Jack O Lanterns - No-Carve pumpkin decorating idea. A great way for toddlers and preschoolers to practice their scissors cutting skills. No mess Halloween decorating project for kids.

BONUS: 22. Use black contact paper to make faux Jack O Lanterns. It is a great Halloween activity for toddlers and preschoolers to practice their scissors skills.

Which of these no-carve pumpkin ideas for kids will you try first?

Sharing is caring!

Ashley

Tuesday 18th of October 2016

These are adorable. I hate carving pumpkins. Probably because I'm awful at it! Mr. Potato pumpkin? Stop. I love it.

Jen

Saturday 8th of October 2016

I'm doing pumpkin decorating at a fall festival. I can't wait to do the confetti pumpkin and I think the boys will enjoy the mummy pumpkin (duck tape fixes everything!).

Stef

Monday 10th of October 2016

Jen, I also plan on trying the mummy pumpkins with my boys this year :)

Anan (calendar 2017 printable)

Monday 26th of September 2016

Good ideas. Thank you.

Debbie

Saturday 24th of September 2016

Love all your pumpkin ideas. I have a 3 yo great granddaughter and she just loves crafts and cooking. You gave us some good ones. Thanks

Stef

Saturday 24th of September 2016

Debbie, I'm happy you found some good craft ideas to try with your granddaughter

Comments are closed.