Host a Halloween Pumpkin Decorating Party with a Cricut

Host a fun pumpkin decorating party for Halloween! These no-carve pumpkin designs make the perfect activity for kids and adults.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

Pumpkin carving was always one of my favorites parts of fall when I was a kid. But it was always kind of a bummer that I could only explain my vision and give direction since knives and kids don’t mix. 🙂 Even though I’m old enough to wield a knife now (haha!), traditional pumpkin carving doesn’t really excite me anymore. Decorating pumpkins using my Cricut though, that excites me! It’s so much fun and I can get much cuter pumpkins than I could trying to carve a legit jack-o-lantern.

How to Host a Halloween Pumpkin Decorating Party with a Cricut

I love the idea of a pumpkin decorating party with lots of fun options for people to choose from to decorate their pumpkins. Just pick some ideas of how to dress up a pumpkin, cut out pumpkin “costumes” and set them out on a table along with the tools needed to transform a basic pumpkin into a Halloween showcase piece! These no-carve pumpkin decorating ideas can vary from intricate and detailed to fun and simple, making a Halloween pumpkin decorating party perfect for any age.

Supplies needed for pumpkin decorating:

• Pumpkins
• Felt glue
• Double sided tape runner
• Glue pen
• Supplies needed for specific pumpkin designs (included in each pumpkin tutorial below)

Halloween Pumpkin Decorating Party Preparation

1. Choose a few designs that you’ll use for your no-carve pumpkin decorating. The 3 pumpkin costumes that I chose vary from more complex to super simple. Depending on how many people you’ll have at your Halloween party, you can either show them the designs beforehand and they can RSVP with their pumpkin design choice or you can just cut out a couple of sets of each design and guests can decide when they arrive. Guests can bring their own pumpkin or you can provide them.

2. Cut the materials for your Cricut pumpkins!

3. If you’d like, you can make up one of each pumpkin design beforehand to have as an example but it’s certainly not necessary; you can always just decorate a pumpkin along with your friends/kids/family.

4. Place the supplies for each design on a table next to the example pumpkin (or next to the signs that I included in each cut file) so that guests know which pieces they will need for their pumpkin. Place the adhesives in a central location at your crafting table so that everyone can reach them. Having 2 or 3 (or more depending on how many guests you have) of each type of glue will keep things moving faster so that everyone isn’t waiting to use the glue.

5. Now you’re ready to decorate the pumpkins! Walk everyone through the steps below so they know how to dress their pumpkins.

* Tip for all pumpkin decorating: start with any steps that require felt glue. It takes a bit for the felt glue to dry so after completing these steps would be a great time to pause for snacks and bevvies! 🙂

How to Make a Unicorn Pumpkin

Supplies Needed for Unicorn Pumpkin

• Unicorn Pumpkin cut file
• Light Pink felt from the Felt Sky sampler for the unicorn’s inner ears
• White felt from the Felt Carousel sampler for the unicorn’s outer ears
• Black Permanant Premium Vinyl for the unicorn’s eyelashes
• Pink Holographic Vinyl for the star teardrops
• Gold glitter cardstock for the unicorn’s horn
• Dark Pink and Yellow Cardstock from the Cardstock Jewels sampler for the paper flower crown
• Light Pink Cardstock from the Cardstock Sorbet sampler for the paper flower crown
• Glue pen

Attach the inside of the unicorn’s ear (pink felt) to the ear (white felt) with felt glue.

Roll the glitter paper into a horn shape. You can trim the paper if you need to adjust the height or width of the unicorn horn. Position the rolled horn onto the pumpkin stem.

Assemble the paper flowers. Curl the edges of each flower piece with a pen or pencil and glue pieces together, starting with the largest petals on the outside. Fold the the yellow stamen pieces up and glue together with a glue pen and glue to the inside of the flower.

Attach eyelashes to the pumpkin’s face. You can use transfer tape but depending on the finish and material of the pumpkin it may leave a residue. I just applied mine like stickers. Apply star stickers the the unicorn’s face.

Use a double sided tape runner to attach the flower crown to the unicorn pumpkin’s forehead. Apply the double sided tape to the inside bottom front of each hear and attach the ears to the flowers so they’re standing up.

How to Make an Owl Pumpkin

Supplies Needed for Owl Pumpkin

• Owl Pumpkin cut file
• White, Black, Pink, Yellow, Orange, Turquoise and Purple felt from the Carousel sampler

Attach the inside of the owl’s eyes (the white felt) to the outer eyes (black felt) with felt glue.

Apply double sided tape to the wings, ears, nose, feet and back of eyes and attach to the owl pumpkin.

Stagger the owl’s feathers as shown below and attach to the pumpkin with double sided tape.

How to Make a Kitten Pumpkin

Supplies Needed for Kitten Pumpkin

• Cat Pumpkin cut file
• Light Pink felt from the Sky sampler for cat’s inner ear, cheeks and bow
• White felt from the Carousel sampler for cat’s outer ear
• Black Permanant Premium Vinyl for cat’s face
• Large paper clips

This is the easiest pumpkin character of them all. Attach the inside of the cat’s ear (pink felt) to the outer ear (white felt) with felt glue like in the unicorn pumpkin.

Assemble the bow, gluing the pieces together with felt glue. Slide a large paper clip over the middle of the bow so that the felt glue dries without having to hold the bow together to form a strong adhesion.

Attach the vinyl cat face to the pumpkin. You can use transfer tape but depending on the finish and material of the pumpkin it may leave a residue. I just applied mine like a sticker.

Apply double sided tape to the back of the pink felt circles and attach to the cat pumpkin’s cheeks. Apply double sided tape to the back of the bow and attach to the bottom of the bow. Attach the bow to the pumpkin stem with double sided tape.

Apply double sided tape to the inside front of the cat’s ears and attach to the back of the bow so they stand up.

Now sit back and enjoy your darling pumpkins!

Are you ready to host your own Halloween pumpkin decorating party? Which pumpkin designs would you make?

When you post photos of your pumpkin decorating halloween party, pretty please tag me (@lydioutloud) and @officialcricut with the hashtag #cricutcreated. We would love to see your spiffy pumpkins!