Easy Painted Pumpkins

Doilies used as stencils give a lacy look to orange pumpkins in the entry. 

A pretty set of pottery inspired the painted color and simple designs on these pumpkins. 

Decorate a natural or artificial pumpkin with painted-on dots for a playful look. To create dots, use the eraser end of a pencil or the rounded end of a paint brush.

Use our pattern to trace the outline of this bushy-tailed woodland creature, then fill in the shape with black acrylic paint. 

Painted designs put the spotlight on your unusual squash or pumpkin cultivars, like this striking blue-green Jarrahdale pumpkin. 

Start with one that is clean and dry. Lightly sand the surface and apply paint sealer to prevent flaking. Create a design with stencils and acrylic paint, such as the leaf stencil and orange and white paints used here, then finish with a top-coat sealer.

Painted bats (or bats cut from black construction paper) look spooky on your doorstep or inside.

A pretty painted plaid design gives this pumpkin a rustic look.

Create these cute, almost-good-enough-to-eat pumpkins with spray paint. 

Create black-and-orange etched designs on three or four pumpkins for a bewitching display. Carve out one to hold a vase full of flowers.

To start, spray-paint the pumpkins a matte black finish. (Protect the stems with tape.) When the pumpkins are dry, use a paring knife to scrape away the painted surface in vertical or horizontal lines. Or etch a simple shape or pattern, such as the sunflower or a zigzag.

A simple but elegant painted stencil decorates this pumpkin.

A painted crow makes an appropriate Halloween appearance in a birdbath lined with twigs or a grapevine wreath in this easy DIY fall decoration.

Just a bit of pattern enhances this white 'Lumina' pumpkin; simple black accents look great on orange pumpkins, too.

Black- or orange-painted mice skitter across pumpkins.

Put together a Halloween outdoor display like this one—featured on a Midwest Living® cover—using a weathered wheelbarrow as a base.

Stuff the bottom of the wheelbarrow with newspaper. Add a mix of pumpkins, gourds, fall leaf branches and bittersweet vines. Paint a friendly message on your pumpkins, if you like.

A painted black cat chases three mice on pumpkins lined up atop an outdoor wall. Get shapes from clipartguide.com or another website. Print, cut out, and tape to pumpkin. Trace around shape, remove paper, then paint inside your lines.

A curving line of green-painted pumpkins forms a fun caterpillar. Decorate painted pumpkins with adhesive-felt dots, and add googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennae to the head.