Painted Pumpkins DIY

Carving pumpkins can be tricky to do with kids, but our painted pumpkins work for all ages! Whether you like to get messy or stay inside the lines, these three painted pumpkin ideas offer a little something to get everyone started. Grab some pumpkins (real or craft), a few art supplies, and check out our tutorial below. 

Materials: 

• Pumpkins -- you can use real pumpkins or craft pumpkins. 

• Paint + Brushes -- we use a variety of our acrylic paints, washable paints, and brushes.

• White spray paint (optional) -- if you are using real pumpkins and want the colors to pop, you can spray the pumpkin with white spray paint before adding the colored paints. 

• Painter’s tape or masking tape 

• Dish soap (optional)

Color-Blocked Pumpkin 

Prime pumpkin (optional) -- if you’re using a real pumpkin, you may wish to spray paint it white before adding color. Let it dry at least 30 minutes before moving on to the next step.

Tape sections -- use painter’s tape to tape off sections of the pumpkin. We kept ours simple and did just two blocks.

Paint sections -- we kept our simple and painted one block and left the other white, but paint as you like! When paint is dry, remove tape.

Pour Painted Pumpkin

This one can be a bit messy, so you might want to use a cardboard box to help catch the paint.

Dilute paint -- add a bit of dish soap and or water to washable paint to dilute it a bit and make it “runny.” Depending on how much you add, your colors may be more translucent (like ours here).

Pour paint -- one color at a time, pour paint at the top of the pumpkin and let it run down the sides. Layer on as much as you like.

Splatter Pumpkin

You might want to take this project outside! 

Paint color base -- use acrylic paints to paint the entire pumpkin one color.

Add splatters! -- flick washable paint onto base color using paint brushes. Let dry.