Painted Pumpkins – Best Way to Decorate for Small Toddler
To get your toddler involved in the pumpkin decorating without handing them a carving knife, drill or some other instrument that causes terror in your heart.
This idea from Parenting.com is a fabulous way to be super creative yet simple and easy.
Just stick on some differently cut out shapes such as circiles, squares, triangles or anything else you can think of. Imagination is your limit.
Then simply paint spray the entire pumpkin with black or any other color acrylic paint, and carefully remove the stickers once dry.
And VOILA! You have yourself a masterpiece with no carving involved.
Think of the possibilities. You can create an entire Halloween landscape full of imaginary characters such as witches, bats, skeletons and whatever else you can think of. Tape them on the pumpkin and you are all set.
And the best part? You can do this with your little ones!
Now go decorate!
Essential Pumkin Carving Tools Unveiled!
Ok…so, you’ve made up your mind, you bought the pumpkins, you’ve got the templates and now you are sitting down trying to figure out how to make a Picaso Pumpkin Masterpiece using nothing but your hands and your archaic kitchen knife?
No worries! We have you covered. Check out our essential pumpkin carving tools must haves!
Dremel Cordless Pumpkin Carving Kit
This baby will have you carving pumpkins you can be proud of!
For those of you over-achievers looking to carve more advanced pumpkins than the traditional jack o’lantern, this awesome tool kit allows fast, easy carving of spectacularly sculpted pumpkins. It even comes with included templates. It’ll cost you about $30.00
Alright, so Picaso or Michaelangelo have nothing on you!
You are the ultimate pumpkin carver in your neighborhood. What do you have hiding in your toolbox? Flex Shaft Attachment. This baby will get into tight spots, nooks, and corners with ease. Professional carvers depend on it because it’s much lighter than a rotary tool, there’s less hand strain when carving detailed designs. The attachment works with any of the corded Dremel models and allows users to grip the output shaft like a pencil for added precision and control. It’ll cost you about $30.00
Pumpkin Masters Power Poker and Saw Have a need to do some intricate carving details? This is the perfect tool.
Make clean and quick cuts with this battery-operated pumpkin jigsaw.
Replaceable saw blades snap into place, and the clear saw guard doesn’t obstruct your view of the pattern.
This will make even the most complicated Halloween template seem like child’s play to you. Go wild and crazy with your pumpkin carving! There are no limits with this handy little tool.
You’ll be designing and creating your own styles pretty soon and won’t even need a template with this baby.
It’ll cost you about $10.00 at Pumpkin Masters.
These Speedball Linoleum Cutters are usually used for printmaking, however, they would work perfectly for shaving away parts of your masterpiece pumpkin and creating cool visual effects.
You can create interesting shadowing and detailing to enhance your design and make it seem like it’s illuminated from within without actually cutting out parts of the pumpkin. For come very cool ideas, click here to go to Martha Stewart. Love the raccoon and the graveyard pumpkins. Perfect examples of this little handy dandy tool can do for ya!
You can find this particular kit at Dick Blick Art Materials for around $9.00
Ok….soooo…you’ve spent the money on the tools, you’ve spent 15 hours researching the most unique carving template, you bought the pumpkins and are ready to carve. But all you can think of is the amount of time it will take you to create your masterpiece only to have it turn to mush in a day! We have your solution!
Funkins: The Original Artificial Carvable Pumpkins
You can now carve away to your heart’s content and your master piece will be safe and sound! This is fantastic pumpkin will cost you about $30.00 and maybe save you some time again next year. 
Now, go carve away you crazy pumpkin carving people! And let us know if we missed any must-have, can’t live without pumpkin carving tools and we’ll list them for ya!
Awesome Halloween Idea: Create An Eerie View Out The Window
Love this idea from BHG.com on creating a “Dreadful View” out of the window by taking a regular graveyard photo and simply magnifying it.
Then paste onto wall or window to create a scary landscape effect.
If you are feeling creative and/or ambition, you can even take a picture yourself with your own digital camera and convert it to black-and-white, then take the image to a blueprint service to have it enlarged.
Use double-sided tape to attach the image to the window from the outside if it’s protected from the elements or simply tape from the inside.
If the window is unprotected, tape the photo to the inside — cutting it into individual panes if you have to deal with muntins (as seen here).
This is an awesome Halloween project to do with your children and involved no mess and almost no clean-up.
How’s that for easy breezy?
Spooky Halloween Pumpkin Magic
If you are tired of the same old orange pumpkins, this is the thing for you!
These puckish pumpkins with their paint-blackened rinds and orange-gold interiors, thumb their carved noses at traditional jack-o’-lanterns.
Martha Stewart’s Black Magic Pumpkins are the perfect alternative for the rebel inside you.
Just use a regular pumpkin, spray paint in black and carve away!
Click here to view the full instructions.
This idea would work great with our Gothic Bath article and is also an awesome and creative kids’ project.
Pumpkin Cupcakes for Halloween – When Else?
These adorable pumpkins cupcakes will be the center of attention at your next Halloween bash.
Featured on Martha Stewart, this pumpkin cupcake recipe is perfect as a Halloween project you can do with your kids.
Super nutritious and almost healthy for you in this cupcake verison, pumpkins are loaded with vitamins A and B, iron, potassium, protein, fiber — and are low in fat and sodium.
The perfect addition to your Halloween desert spread.
You can even line your serving platter with some beautiful fall colors. Collect some large oak leaves that have just begun to turn red, rinse them off and you have a gorgeous Halloween platter worthy of being in a magazine!
Gothic Bash This Halloween? Check Out These Tabletop Ideas!
If you are into anything Goth or Vampires, you know the only choice when throwing a Halloween party is to go Goth!
From the theme to the costumes to the decorations, there is no better way to show your unique style and sense of danger!
Warning: this party idea may not be suitable for smaller children. I would strongly suggest you do this as an adult only party!
Don’t want to freak out all the kids with your spider webs, skulls and ghosts! Or maybe you do… you evil things… I know what you are all thinking! bbbooooo!
Spoookkiie Favor Boxes from BHG.com are easy to make and can also work as a unique tabletop decoration. You can fill them with all kinds of scary candy or other treats!
Imagination in your limit. This also a good arts and crafts project to do with your children for other parties as well. Just change the colors and decorations and this would be perfect for any type of favor box.
You can even throw in some creepy crawly things to make your guests jump with fear even after they leave your spooktacular goth bash.
I loved this idea immediately when I saw it! yyuuummmm! Think of the possibilities!
What a delicious and fun way to spook your guests (and some of your older kids).
Click here to read the instructions on how to make them. Of course as with anything, I am sure you can think of 100 different variations to this.
Another awesome and inexpensive way to decorate your tabletop is with this BHG.com Rest-in-Peace Napkin Ring.
All you need are:
- Lightweight cardboard
- Black-and-white houndstooth fabric
- Hot-glue gun
- Stretchable skeleton
I can see where to get all the items except for the Stretchable skeleton. Where would you find that?
Click here to read the instructions on this napkin ring holder.
Awesome Halloween Decoration Idea: Snowman Pumpkins
Found this on BHG! What an awesome idea!!
Great as a kid’s after school or weekend activity on cold October days when you can’t think of anything else to do.
An alternative to this is using white pumpkins or if you can’t find white pumkins, paint the orange ones with white spray paint.
Then get 3 sizes, large for the bottom level, medium for the middle level and small for the head.
Then go your local party store or halloween accessories store and get a witch’s hat and cape or a bat wings, bat ears and mask and a couple of scary Halloween characters that are sure to be a hit with all the trick-or-treaters.
