25 Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – Fall Pumpkin Decor You’ll Want to Try Out
Updated on October 13, 2021
When December comes, one of the most common Christmas traditions is to pick out a tree and implement your Christmas tree decorating skills in the living room, and the Halloween equivalent to that is when you look for pumpkin decorating ideas to do the exact same thing.
Well, there are plenty of ways you can decorate a pumpkin on Halloween, from carving them to painting them, or even leaving them as they are, especially if they have a particular shape or color.
However, if you’re looking to unleash your Halloween imagination on a pumpkin this year, but have no idea where to start, you\ve come to the right place since we will be listing a few amazing Halloween pumpkin decorating ideas that you can try out this year.
Which Are the Best Pumpkin Decorating Ideas of 2021?
Halloween decorations are subject to change based on trends, so the best decorations of last year may no longer feel so unique anymore in 2021, and that’s why the next section of this article focuses on the hottest pumpkin decorating ideas of 2021.
We did extensive research over popular Internet channels like social media in order to come up with the following 10 entries, and we noticed that these are the hottest ideas of the year.
Also, keep in mind that this article is a list of ideas, and not a ranking, so that doesn’t mean that one idea is better than the others.
1. Pumpkin Decor – Cornucopia
If you’re not all that much into Halloween, but still like to celebrate the fall for being the season of the harvest, you could do so by having a cornucopia-based pumpkin decor where you showcase all that autumn has to offer.
The best thing about this particular decoration idea is that if you want to make it yourself, you can fill it with pretty much any local fruits and vegetables you want (since having bananas and oranges in an autumn-themed cornucopia is a bit out of place).
In fact, the only real thing that you have to worry about if you do consider making a cornucopia is where you can find the actual basket, since making one yourself is, albeit possible, pretty hard without the right materials and at least some experience in basket weaving.
Fortunately enough, these become pretty common in both supermarkets and in city fairies, especially around autumn, and they’re also pretty cheap as well.
Another neat thing about a cornucopia-based decoration is that it can also serve a practical purpose, especially during large family meals, since you can have one packed with all kinds of goodies right in the middle of the table.
Not only will it look amazing, but people can go ahead and help themselves to whatever is inside them, especially since the cornucopia is the symbol of abundance after all.
2.No-Carve Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – Silly Pumpkin Clowns
When it comes to pumpkin-based Halloween decorations, most people probably think of the iconic Jack-o-Lantern, and while few things can compare to a well-carved pumpkin with lights coming out of it, the truth is that not everyone is handy with a blade well enough as to make a decently carved pumpkin.
Not only that, but carving a pumpkin can be a bit risky as well, especially if you’re a bit of a butter-fingers since it’s pretty easy to have your hand slip on pumpkin guts and end up cutting yourself.
Because of that, many people are looking for some no-carve pumpkin decorating ideas, since these look just as neat if painted correctly, and they last a lot longer than regular pumpkins.
As such, here we are showcasing you one extremely hilarious way to paint your Halloween pumpkins, which is to draw clown faces on them, as you can see from the example above.
All you need is a pumpkin, regardless of shape, size, or color, and some paint that will stick to the pumpkin’s naturally smooth surface. And then it’s all up to you and your drawing skills to make the clown face as hilarious as possible.
You can take this idea one step further by adding funny hats, fake clown noses that make squeaky sounds, or even some wigs.
Quick tip: if you want the colors to turn out ok, we recommend that you first paint the entire pumpkin white, and only then proceed to draw the clown’s face.
3. White Pumpkin Decor Ideas
Simplicity is sometimes the key to making the best decorative objects, and as you can see from the image above, you can easily make your house a whole lot prettier by using some simple white pumpkin decor with a few dashes of silver or gold.
For best results, we recommend that you use paint that is pearlescent, and that the pumpkins that you’re painting are as small as possible so that they end up looking like porcelain sculptures rather than actually painted pumpkins.
As for any extra paint and dashes of colors that you may think of adding, we recommend that you work with paints that are also pearlescent or ones that are really shiny or even have a metallic sheen to them after they dry.
As for blending the colors, we recommend that you do like in the example above and mix up the colors in gradients for a more pleasant visual effect.
As for added decorations, you can go ahead and place the painted pumpkins next to white candles (as per the image above), or other household decorations that share the same color schemes, such as brass statues, or other kinds of metal furniture (candle holders, old clocks, etc).
All in all, white pumpkins are some of the best Halloween pumpkin decor ideas that you can try, especially if you’re interested in making your house look elegant rather than scary or spooky, so while you won’t be scaring anyone away, you will be receiving a lot of praise for your refined tastes.
4. Fall Pumpkin Decor – Autumn Basket
This idea is somewhat similar to the cornucopia entry, but if you truly want to showcase what fall is all about, then you can’t go wrong with a fall pumpkin decor that centers around everything that autumn has to offer: a bountiful harvest.
Similar to the cornucopia, all you have to do is bring together some common autumn elements, like pumpkins, corn cobs, fallen leaves, and maybe even some forest fruits, and you have the embodiment of autumn in a small basket.
One advantage of this decoration idea is that regular twine baskets are much easier to acquire than cornucopias, and thanks to their shape they also make for some excellent gift ideas, especially if you fill them up with all kinds of goodies.
Besides, these decorations can be prepared since the very beginning of autumn, and you can keep them around your house well after Halloween and Thanksgiving is over, since they not only look amazing but depending on what you fill them with, they will also make your house smell very nice too.
Besides, an autumn basket has the advantage of working with almost any element inside your house, so regardless of whether you want to place it above the chimney in your living room, outside your yard to greet trick-or-treaters, or even as the table centerpiece during Thanksgiving dinner, it will always look amazing.
5. Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – Cute Unicorn
The key to coming up with creative pumpkin decorating ideas is to try and think outside the box as much as possible, so while everyone is carving away trying to make Jack-o-Lanterns, or painting the pumpkins in the colors of the fall, you can go ahead and make something completely unique and unexpected: a cute unicorn pumpkin!
As you can see from the picture above, the painting part of this decoration is pretty simple, since the whole pumpkin is covered in just the color white on top of which they drew some cute eyes, and then added a small crown of flowers, a fake horn, and some fake ears.
If this idea seems like exactly the thing you were looking for, we recommend that you try the following tips in order to get the most out of your magical autumn unicorn.
For starters, you can go ahead and paint the entire pumpkin in either pearlescent white, glow-in-the-dark paint, or pink, and that you draw the eyes as either closed as per the picture above or make them in an anime style.
The crown of flowers is extremely easy to make, especially if you want to make it using things you’d regularly find during autumn, and the horn and ears can easily be bought together from a costume shop in the form of a headband.
You can even go ahead and cover the entire unicorn in glitter, or even those glow-in-the-dark stars and crescent moons that you’d usually stick on the ceiling of a child’s room.
All in all, this is probably the cutest entry in our entire list, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t go well surrounded by creepy ghost decorations or spooky Jack-o-Lanterns.
6. Easy Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – Pandemic Pumpkins
The global pandemic is not a joke, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t use it as an inspiration for some very easy pumpkin decorating ideas, such as these pandemic pumpkins.
In order to make the pandemic pumpkins, you can go ahead and carve out a Jack-o-Lantern, and then cover the mouth with a mask, although the tricky part will be sticking the mask onto the pumpkin’s face, especially since it lacks ears completely.
However, you can go ahead and attach a piece of string or elastic to the masks and then tie it in a knot behind the pumpkin, or you can even tie the masks’ elastic together if the pumpkin is small enough and you can stretch them.
The great thing about this pumpkin idea is that since you’ll have a mask covering the lower half of the Jack-o-Lantern, you can skip carving out the mouth entirely since no one will know the difference.
More so, those of you that hate carving pumpkins and prefer painting them can go ahead and paint the eyes instead, or you can even go ahead and paint the entire pumpkin, mask included.
All in all, this is a very easy pumpkin decoration idea, and given that the global pandemic is pretty much what everyone is talking about, it’s definitely one of the hottest themes for a Halloween decoration in 2021.
7. Mini Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – Googly-Eyed Pumpkins
When it comes to house decoration, they all work by following one universal truth: if they’re small, they are cute, and the smaller they are, the cuter they are, and that’s precisely the secret behind these mini pumpkin decorating ideas on top of which you only need to add some big googly eyes.
The best thing about this particular pumpkin decor idea is that you literally don’t need anything else and that as long as you place the eyes properly, you can use any type of pumpkin, regardless of shape, size, or color.
Besides, if you really want to make your pumpkins look very cute, you should go ahead and look for the biggest googly eyes that you can find, because the bigger the eyes are compared to the head, the more adorable your decorations will be.
If you feel like placing big eyes on small pumpkins is not enough, you can go ahead and add some patches of rainbow-colored fuzz, and you can make your mini pumpkins look like Chuzzles in no time.
However, if cuteness is not what you’re looking for, there is a way to make small pumpkins with big googly eyes look creepy: have lots of them!
Basically, we recommend that you fill the entire wall of a house with tens of these small googly-eyed pumpkins since nothing is more creepy than having hundreds of eyes staring blankly at you, especially if you manage to find eyes that look as if they follow you around regardless of what angle you’re looking at them.
8. Halloween Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – The Traditional Jack-o-Lantern
There’s a reason why classics never die, and when it comes to Halloween pumpkin decorating ideas, you can’t get any more iconic than the good old Jack-o-Lantern.
Sure enough, we already talked about how Jack-o-Lanterns are not easy to make, especially if you have to handle knives or other sharp objects, but those of you that are handy with a blade will undoubtedly manage to create some of the spookiest Jack-o-Lanterns that you will ever see.
Besides, when it comes to the design itself, there’s no particular rule that you need to follow when sculpting the Jack-o-Lantern since everything is completely up to you and your imagination, from the shape of the eyes to the shape of the ghoulish grin that you’ll give it.
As such, every Jack-o-Lantern is completely unique, and the fact that you use lighting to showcase the shapes in the dark only gives you even more creative freedom, since you can use lights and shadows to create amazing visual effects.
If spooky is what you’re going for, you can make the Jack-o-Lanterns even more terrifying by lighting them with colored light bulbs instead of candles, and placing speakers inside of them that play creepy sound effects, or even terrifying voices to scare the faint of heart.
All in all, Jack-o-Lanterns may not be new to the Halloween scenery, but they are as popular in 2021 as they were 100 years ago, so it was only natural that they have a place on our list.
9. Fall Pumpkin Decor – Monochromatic Pumpkins
When autumn arrives, many of the vivid colors that we enjoyed during spring and summer go away and are replaced with red, yellow, and orange, and the sky turns from ocean blue to a very melancholic grey, and there are many people that actually love this almost monochromatic scenery.
That being said, a fall pumpkin decor that uses only the colors white and black is perfect for them, and these two very contrasting colors allow for some amazing patterns that will definitely make for some very impressive visuals.
For example, in the example above you can see how the author made the pumpkins either black with white polka-dots, or white with black polka-dots, or how he painted each section of a pumpkin alternatively between black and white,
In order to make the visuals more impressive, they decided to use silver paint with a metallic sheen instead of plain old grey paint, and they placed the pumpkins next to other decorative objects that were either black, white, or silver.
All in all, the end result isn’t tacky at all, and it goes very well in houses where you want your decorations to showcase elegance rather than the typical Halloween spookiness, just like our previous entry with plain white pumpkins
More so, if you plan on decorating your entire house to be all gloomy, or dress everyone up as the Addams family, these pumpkins will go very well with the overall atmosphere.
10. Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – Halloween Messages
When you’re completely out of ideas, but still and to try out some creative pumpkin decorating ideas, the best thing you can do is make pumpkins that have messages on them.
These messages can be either spooky or funny, and you can paint them on the pumpkin or carve them out entirely, although we recommend that you still paint since it’s a lot simpler, especially if you intend on writing a message that is pretty long.
As for the technique itself, we recommend that you write the spooky messages using either dripping red paint (so that it looks like smeared blood) or glow-in-the-dark paint to really freak everyone out, especially if you plan on keeping them in darker rooms.
As for the messages themselves, you can write typical creepy Halloween warnings like “trespassers beware”, or “all those who enter, abandon all hope”.
On the other hand, if you prefer to keep things a bit more lighthearted, you can use funny messages instead, or even corny Halloween puns and these will go perfectly with other decorations that aren’t meant to scare anyone, like the previously mentioned unicorn pumpkin.
The best part about this idea is that you are free to write whatever you want, so as far as creative freedom goes, you could literally make hundreds of such pumpkins without having 2 that are alike. You can check out our tutorial here.
More Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
The previous section contained the most popular and sought after ideas of 2021, but if you don’t care all that much about being trendy and only want some pumpkin decorating ideas that look amazing, you can go ahead and browse the following 15 entries, since these were the hottest ideas of 2020.
11. Sequins – Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
Sugar & Clothbreathed new life into their pumpkins by adding polka-dotted sequins to them. Keep them orange and use different colors or paint them neutral and use metallic shades. We love this girly route to take.
12. Rainbow Confetti Pumpkin Decor
A bit of washi tape could help you out at as well. Over at Made With Happyyou’ll learn how to create a confetti-inspired pumpkin to deck out your front door with. The kiddos will love this one.
13. Marbled Indigo – No Carve Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
This design from Alice & Lois fits right into the current trends. Marble is on the rise and it’s the perfect way to decorate your pumpkin this year. And this indigo color is a beauty!
14. Ice Cream Cone – Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
Why not turn your pumpkins into ice cream cones? Perfect for unique decor or events, you can find all the details behind this fun idea by visiting Martha Stewart.
15. Gold Leaf – Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
We’re loving this design because it fits right in with the Halloween season and it’s still really fashion forward. The geniuses at Brit + Co painted their pumpkin black and then used gold leafing to bring it to life. Grab the deets after the jump.
16. Chalkboard – Halloween Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
Grab the chalkboard paint and turn your pumpkin into something sweet for your farmhouse home. We love this easy idea from Better Recipesand it’s one that’s really easy to personalize as well. From kitchen designs to front step greetings, there’s a lot of different ways for this one to go.
17. Flower Pot Pumpkin – White Pumpkin Decor
You can turn your pumpkins into flower vases as well. All you have to do is check out the tutorial from Handmade Charlotte. And then, fill it with seasonal florals or ones that match the autumn event you’re hosting.
18. Frozen “Elsa” Pumpkin – Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
We found the perfect project for you and your little gal. A Pumpkin & a Princess will walk you through all of the fun and festive steps it takes to create an Elsa-inspired pumpkin.
19. Pumpkin Decorating Ideas – Sugar Skulls
Brit + Coshowcased some beautiful sugar skull pumpkins that got our creative juices flowing. Grab the paints and start using your imagination to concoct something extra festive for the season. Let the kids join in on the fun too.
20. Golden Doily Pumpkin Decor
You may need to paint them, but doilies can be a great addition to your pumpkin decor this year. We’re really in love with this neutral design. Check it out at 17 Apart.
21. Ombre Spiderwebs Pumpkin Decor
Plaid Onlineshowcased these spiderweb pumpkins and we fell in love. They’re perfect for Halloweentime and they’re stylish too. You could even add a plastic spider to complete the “spooky” look.
22. House Address Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
Grab your paints and create a chic front door look for the house. Style and Cheekwent with a gold and black combination and then used them to display the the home address. It’s perfect especially if you’re having any kind of guests over throughout the season.
23. Whitewashed Pumpkin Decor
Tidbitshad these whitewashed pumpkins featured and we love the trendy style here too. It’s perfect for subdued homes with a farmhouse quality or those with a more cottage vibe. Check out the tutorial after hopping on over.
24. Donut Pumpkin Decorating Idea
Turn your pumpkin into a donut, because, well, why not? Get the scoop over at Studio DIY. And grab some mini pumpkins too for the little ones to paint their own editions.
25. Floral Decoupage Pumpkin Decor
And then you can visit Brit + Co just one more time to grab the instructions behind this beautiful floral pumpkin. It’s a decoupage pumpkin that’s perfect for displaying in an artisy, trendy home but also speaks of the season as well.
Best Pumpkin Decorating Ideas: Closing Thoughts
Our long list of best pumpkin decorating ideas has come to an end, and we hope that by the time you’ve finished browsing through them, you’ll finally have the inspiration you were looking for to make your very own pumpkin-based decorations.
Remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when it comes to making your own decorations you don’t have to follow any strict tutorials, and that you can go ahead and play with the ideas until you have a decorated pumpkin that looks exactly the way you want it to.
For more amazing Halloween-based articles, go ahead and browse our website, since we’ve written plenty of them, from lists of amazing Halloween snacks to step-by-step tutorials accompanied by videos where we will showcase how you can make your own decorations or costumes at home.
Not only that, but Halloween is just around the corner, and if you want to read about a particular topic that we haven\t covered yet, leave us your suggestions in the comments section below, and we’ll make an article about that subject as soon as possible!
Happy Halloween!