No-carve pumpkin painting ideas: Our favorite pumpkin decorating tips for fall

What you’ll need:

• Real and/or artificial pumpkins in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors
• Different shades of matte spray paint
• Acrylic paint for painting designs
• Paint primer
• Smocks/aprons if you don’t want paint stains
• Brushes (different sizes and shapes)
• Permanent markers
• Metallic paint pens
• Glitter paint or pens
• Paint palettes or paper plates
• Masking tape
• Bowls or cups for water
• Newsprint or butcher paper (to cover tables)
• Halloween candy (for snacking 😉)

The perfect time to experiment with different vibes is before you start painting. And while we’re all for free-styling your gourd-geous pumpkins, if you want a more cohesive look, we’ve got tips to help!

Start off with a mood board and colour palette that matches your style, interesting trends or your idea of the perfect Halloween front porch.

You could do a ’70s disco vibe with ALL the sparkles. Perhaps A DIY vintage look with upcycled materials and perfectly imperfect details (like paper and macramé attachments). Or something traditional with black, orange and playful splashes of neon.

Turn up the autumn vibes with a fall drink bar

Nothing goes better with a fall craft than drinks curated just for the season. Pair your pumpkin painting session with some of our favourite cozy fall beverages (pumpkin-spice latte recipe included, of course!).

Sketch your design right onto your pumpkin before you begin painting so you can make sure the scale is right. You might have to erase and start over a few times to get it just right, and that’s totally okay!

If you want to go high-tech and you have access to a laptop, digital tablet and a projector, try these tips:

• Take a picture of your pumpkin and use a digital tablet to draw designs onto the photo. This helps a ton with perfecting your design and scale.
• Once you’ve figured out your approach, project and trace your drawing onto the pumpkin.
• Finally, test your paints to check how many coats you’ll need for your desired shade. Paint on the back or bottom of the pumpkin where no one will see, paint and wipe off, or just plan to paint over the test. Spraying your pumpkin with a primer also works wonders.

You’ve got a plan and your pumpkins are officially primed and prepped for some colour. Make them flawless with our painting secrets below:

• Grab your pumpkin by the stem and use that to rotate it and paint from different angles as you make your way around.
• If you don’t like how something turns out, paint over it or start over on the back side of the pumpkin.
• For more controlled line work or shapes, use a coloured Sharpie. Or if you’re looking for something expressive and bold, try acrylic paint and a thick brush!
• Some craft paints are not very pigmented and require multiple coats. Using heavier body acrylics or adding a little heavy body white acrylic paint helps this a little. (“Heavy body” or “high viscosity” paints have a thicker consistency.)
• If you’re using plastic pumpkins, prime them with matte primer or white spray paint. This makes the colours look brighter, helps the acrylic paint stick better and ultimately saves you a few coats of paint.
• Spray large areas with spray paint. It looks cleaner and you won’t have to worry about messy brush stroke marks.
• Premix or pre-pour your paint beforehand so you’re not deciding on colours while you’re painting. And always mix more of a unique colour than you think you will need—you don’t want to run out halfway through your pumpkin.
• Also, don’t be scared to do a double coat—it might need it.

Need some last-minute inspo?

Maybe it’s the morning of your big fall gathering, or hours before trick-or-treaters arrive and the porch is crying out for some colour

Either way, these super quick and easy pumpkin painting designs are sure to impress and will look like they took a lot longer than they did (we won’t tell!).

• Paint the stem—or, if it’s long, just the tip.
• Cover tiny pumpkins in one colour to accentuate bold designs on bigger pumpkins.
• Make simple marks, dots or stripes in one colour all over.
• Mask the top half with tape and paint the bottom.
• Follow the ridges to make vertical stripes.

After all your hard work, these beauties deserve some admiration! The most obvious place to display them is the front porch, but don’t forget to use plastic ones or spray real ones with spray paint to stymie squirrels. There are so many other great places to show off your pretty pumpkins:

• A windowsill (especially if you live in an apartment)
• Arranged around your fireplace or on the mantel
• As a centrepiece on your dining table
• On your desk at work
• In a styled vignette on a bookshelf
• Lining that awkward space on top of your kitchen cabinets
• In the corner of a staircase landing
• Piled on a bedside table in a kiddo’s room
• On top of the fridge