Halloween pumpkin carving ideas

Decorating pumpkins is a craft movement in its own right, even outside America. We pick some of our very favourite pumpkin carving ideas, from monochromatic beauties to moth-brushed shadow stencils.

Pumpkin pic from oursouthernnest.blogspot.com

Pumpkin carving tip: It’s good to stack pumpkins on top of each other like a snowman. Also, pumpkins love spider accessories. They feel somewhat under-dressed without them.

Pumpkin pic from cfabbridesigns.com

Pumpkin carving tip: Focus on creating a Halloween scene rather than showing off the skill of your pumpkin carving. Make sure your candle is placed right at the back of the pumpkin so nothing catches fire. Use fake spiders and cobwebs to create a misty cavern. If we’d made this, we’d have added small figures of Frodo and Sam to recreate the fateful Shelob scene in Lord of the Rings.

Pumpkin pic from twigandthistle.com

Pumpkin carving tip: Stencil designs onto your pumpkin instead of cutting bits out. You can get intricate, delicate effects. It’s like shadows being brushed away by a moth’s wings.

Pumpkin pic from bhg.com

Pumpkin carving tip: Pumpkin vajazzling. Where will it end? Another nice example of painting pumpkins and artful use of accessories. This would also look lovely with a stencil.

Pumpkin pic from blog.hgtv.com

Pumpkins are beautiful in an autumnal orange way. But if you’re a monochromatic soul, you can forgo carving pumpkins to shine light through and paint them instead. It’s your pumpkin. It’s your call. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when a painted Halloween pumpkin hits the decaying and moulding process… worth taking pictures of every day to assemble into a collage, really.

Pumpkin pic from skulladay.com

Pumpkin carving tip: Create a wide enough opening in your larger pumpkin that you can place the front of a smaller pumpkin behind. It’s great how Skulladay realised you can work different pumpkin colours to spooky effect.

Pumpkin pic from marthastewart.com

Pumpkin carving tip: This is lateral-minded genius. If you’re a bit fist-handed when it comes to arts and crafts, you can still hack into a pumpkin, fill it with ice and use it as a drinks holder at your Halloween party. That’s right, we’ve just given props to a pumpkin carving tip from a household name. No, we can’t quite believe it either.

Pumpkin pic from flickr.com/photos/cropwithanna/

Pumpkin carving tip: None. We actually can’t tell how it was done. Normally, you carve a pumpkin by cutting its hat off then spooning out its innards, then carving into the side. But this beautiful nature-themed pumpkin has, it seems, had its innards lovingly removed from a small gap in the tree carving. This must have taken an incredible amount of time and patience.

Pumpkin pic from chopcow.com

Pumpkin carving tip: Click the link to discover how to achieve this pumpkin face nightmare tableau in their cannibal pumpkin carving tutorial. We shyly extend an invitation for you to return to us after you’ve read it.

Pumpkin pic from soaringphotography.com

You know what? We just really like these. They’re not difficult. They’re not pumpkin carvings. They’re not even pumpkins. But literally anyone in the work can take a mason jar, paint a ghost face or scary eyes on it and pop a tea light in. They can even give the jar a spooky white or orange wash paint if they’re up to it. It may be simple, as Halloween decorations go, but it’s terribly effective.

If you enjoyed this featured, check out the rest of our Halloween costume and craft ideas…