painted pumpkin

Hate the sticky, nasty mess of carving pumpkins into jack o' lanterns? I sure do. In fact, I hate it so much that we rarely ever do it at our house.

I know pumpkin carving is supposed to be fun for kids and Halloween festive and all, but for me, it's just another irritating holiday tradition that gets the kids all excited for the whole five minutes it takes for them to draw the scary face. Then they take off and leave me to pluck out all those slimy seeds, do the carving (sticking a knife through a pumpkin shell isn't easy, folks!), and clean up the mess. Just like decorating Easter eggs ... just like trimming the Christmas tree .... I cry foul on the whole darn thing.

Thank goodness for the creativity of the interwebs; nowadays you'll find some really cool no-carve pumpkin decorating ideas. Here are the newest and coolest no-carve ones we've found for 2010.

1. (Shown above) Just let them decorate. With paint. On the pumpkin. However they want. You'll still have a mess, but a smaller one if you keep tabs on where the paint's going.

pumpkin bookshelf tree

2. How cool is this pumpkin bookshelf tree? I could see taking this idea in a number of directions -- construct a witch, a group of ascending bats, a haunted house. Get the "how-to" over at Country Living.

doily stenciled pumpkin

3. This lacy doily stenciled pumpkin is sure pretty, especially for those of us who are not that into the ghoulishness of the holiday. Read the instructions at BHG.

painted pumpkins white insects

4. Here's another fun spin on the painted pumpkin -- black insects on white pumpkins from Young House Love. Those will stand out from the curb.

plaid striped pumpkins

5. These plaid and striped pumpkins created with Japanese masking tape (which I looove for so many reasons) look fantastic. See Real Simple for seven other pumpkin decorating ideas.

rope wire pumpkins tutorial

6. Want to avoid the carving and the pumpkin altogether? Check out these tutorials for making pumpkins out of rope and wire from The Hand Me Down House. So cute.

More No- and Low-Carve Pumpkin Options:

5 Pretty No-Carve Pumpkin Ideas

Blackboard-Painted Pumpkins (No Carving!)

Low-Carve Pumpkin Idea: Give It a Whack!

Scary No-Carve Pumpkin Bats

Pumpkin-Free Jack O' Lanterns

How will you be decorating pumpkins at your house?

 

Images via rocketjim54/Flickr, Country Living, Better Homes & Garden, Young House Love, Real Simple by Don Penny, The Hand Me Down House