How to Paint Pumpkins

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There’s nothing like painting pumpkins in the Fall. It’s a fun little project that both adults and kids can do.

Painting Pumpkins as a Kids and Family Activity

Having lived in the mid-west and upper North, the cooler months always came with an array of painting pumpkin activities. It’s a great indoor activity and the children loved it! But not the children only, I did too except our choice of paint were different some times, depending on the uses of the pumpkins.

My kids painted these painted these Jack-O-Lanterns this year

How Do You Paint a Pumpkin Easy?

Painting pumpkins aren’t hard at all, at least from our experience. All you need to paint are paint: brushes and pumpkins, of course. If the pumpkins are already colored and not plain white, it may need a second or third coat after the first one dries. But overall, it’s very easy to paint a pumpkin. Go read my tutorial about Painting Pumpkins, if you need extra help. This year we found some Styrofoam ones from the Dollar Tree (they had them in white, black and orange).

How to Paint Pumpkins with Acrylic Paint

What you need:

Craft Pumpkins – This year we found some Styrofoam ones from the Dollar Tree (they had them in white, black and orange)
Acrylic Craft Paint
Paint Brushes
Something to pour the paint in
Table Protector (like an old tablecloth, newspaper or such)
Optional: Painter’s tape if you don’t want to paint the stem

What to do:

Wrap the stem in painter’s tape (visual tutorial)
Apply a first coat of paint to the pumpkin
Let it dry
Apply a second coat of paint and even third coat of paint, if needed

Get all Fancy with Designs

The kids can get all fancy and apply designs to your pumpkins.

For example, if you painted a pumpkin in black, after it dries you could add some white, gold, pink (or any color dots you want). Check out my dotted pumpkin project here.
Do the same thing with stripes when it dries
Add glitter before the paint dries (after the last coat) or after it dries, apply glue, then glitter.

The possibilities are a lot so you could have them try different things. Hope we can inspire you enough to go paint some pumpkins, even if it is just for fun.