Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Dead Head Pumpkins

Don't be shy: Show off your top-notch collection of bodiless heads by placing them atop pedestals. You can put the display next to a stair railing or adjacent to a walkway outdoors -- in fact, anywhere you think a leering head would be a nice decorative touch. Draw faces you like, or print our templates.

How to Carve a Basic Pumpkin Face

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Choirboy Squashes

Legend has it that the luckless souls who hear the Three Squashes' song of woe shall vanish into the nearest vegetable patch, never to be seen or heard from again. Since narrow squashes are easier to hollow out if you work from both ends, these guys had the tops of their heads cut off. 

How to Carve a Butternut Squash

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Jack the Winker

Carve a screwy face into a pumpkin, and make him wink using socket kits and small appliance bulbs.

How to Make Jack the Winker

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Scarecrow

Stuff and dress a family of pumpkin heads, and they will cast a spell over the neighborhood -- crows included!

How to Make a Pumpkin Scarecrow

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Totem

Stacked in graduated sizes, three carved pumpkins make a spectral lamppost.

How to Make a Pumpkin Totem

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Lantern-o'-Treats

Get double duty out of your jack-o'-lantern by using it as a glowing candy bowl.

How to Make the Lantern-o'-Treats

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Turnip Jack-o'-Lanterns

These gruesome gourds may not technically be pumpkins, but carved turnips still make good night watchmen hanging from your porch rafters or a lamppost.

How to Make Turnip Jack-o'-Lanterns

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Morbid Multiples

Not one but five apple gourds, which have an unpleasantly mottled hue, lie in wait on this sill. Their shifty glances and tormented frowns were carved to look similar -- yet not quite the same. A bed of dead branches ensures this vengeful band will get no sleep.

How to Carve a Basic Pumpkin Face

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Peekaboo Mini Pumpkin

Being trapped in a candy dish is vexing, to be sure. The mini pumpkin on the right had his stem sliced off, then he was placed in the bowl. His eyes and nose were penciled in; he was removed, carved, and cruelly confined again. The one at left was carved, then balanced on a teapot.

See our Expressive Pumpkin Face Templates

How to Carve a Basic Pumpkin Face

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Two-Faced Pumpkin with Wall Projection

In case its startling greeting didn't scare you, this pumpkin also projects a leering visage onto the wall behind it.

How to Make a Two-Faced Pumpkin with Wall Projection

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Stem-Nosed Pumpkins

Even though they're always disdainfully wrinkling their noses at you, this nosy family are smart to have around: They can smell danger from miles away. When carving, hollow them out from a hole in the bottom, and position their features (see page 2 of this template) on top so the stems can serve as noses.

How to Carve a Basic Pumpkin Face

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Snake Pumpkins

These jack-o'-lanterns take a walk on the wild side when you wreathe rubber snakes through them.

How to Make Snake Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Celtic Knot Pumpkins

For an intricate and unique jack-o'-lantern, try carving Celtic knots, complete loops with no end or beginning, into a pumpkin.

How to Make Celtic Knot Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Funkin Witch Carousel

Turn a Funkin into a spinning witch carousel you can use for Halloween year after year.

How to Make the Funkin Witch Carousel

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Raccoon

This raccoon bandit is intent on stealing some candy. His nose was made with a pointy gourd (especially good for sniffing out treats) that was fitted into a hole in the front of his pumpkin head.

How to Make the Pumpkin Raccoon

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Crow's Foe Pumpkin

This scarecrow glowers at a feathered antagonist -- and anyone else who dares look his way. 

How to Make the Crow's Foe Pumpkin

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Mini Witch and Cat Pumpkins

This sneaky pair of mini pumpkin creatures is brewing up a sugary potion in a hollowed-out apple. Their petite portions are sure to appeal to little kids, who can find everything they need to decorate them around the house.

How to Make the Mini Witch and Cat Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Party Cooler

You don't need a fairy godmother to turn a pumpkin into an ice bucket.

How to Make the Pumpkin Party Cooler

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Two-Faced Jack-o'-Lantern with Mirror Effect

We all have our glad and mad faces, captured by the jittery jack-o'-lantern. Carve these opposing expressions onto a pumpkin. Light it up, and use a mirror to show his complete personality.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Cat Pumpkins

These playful cats have halved miniature pumpkins for paws. The curved stem of a large, oval pumpkin makes a good tail.

Tools and Techniques for Creating Pumpkin Creatures

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Ravenous Pumpkin

This ravenous pumpkin is cursed: He must offer up sweets to children all evening, yet he is not allowed to eat them (neither the sweets nor the children). A treat-filled bowl was placed in his cavernous mouth, and miniature flashlights were tucked on either side, against his jowls. Use our template for his face.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Mini Pumpkin Scarecrow

This carved scare-cob stands guard on Halloween with a yellow plastic pitchfork in hand.

How to Make the Mini Pumpkin Scarecrow

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Spiders

Three large spiders are lurking beside our pumpkin web. They are made from green gourds that were sliced in half and attached with toothpicks to carved templates.

Tools and Techniques for Creating Pumpkin Creatures

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Porcupines

Use big pumpkins for the porcupines' bodies, and attach the heads with toothpicks. To create quills, push white holiday lights through drilled holes that are slightly smaller than the lights.

Tools and Techniques for Creating Pumpkin Creatures

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Spider Squash

What would Halloween be without a macabre evocation of the denizens of the night? These multilegged creatures rise up from the damp earth and moss to skitter across cold stones.

How to Make the Spider Squash

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Filigree Pumpkin

Delicately carved floral filigree bands evoke lace on these pale pumpkins.

How to Make the Filigree Pumpkin

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Carrot-Nose Jack-o'-Lanterns

If you don't have time to carve a complete face, a carrot will add some character to your jack-o-'lantern.

How to Make Carrot-Nose Jack-o'-Lanterns

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Toadstool Pumpkins

No need to worry that these mushrooms are poisonous. They're made from crown pumpkins and butternut, delicata, and carnival squashes.

How to Make the Toadstool Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Mouse Motel

Rooms go fast in these cozy, critter-filled pumpkins, which offer a shudder-inspiring alternative to traditional carving motifs.

How to Make the Mouse Motel

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Alligator and Snail Pumpkins

Slow but sneaky, the snail uses his squash-stem antennae to lead him to a snack. His body is a squat pumpkin turned on its side; his head is a round, spotted gourd.

The alligator is on the hunt for unsuspecting prey. He's constructed of four large, oblong pumpkins. 

How to Make Alligator and Snail Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Spooky Silhouette Designs

An ink-coated silhouette is a sophisticated variation on pumpkin carving.

How to Make Spooky Silhouette Designs

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Glittered Pumpkins

These reader-favorite decorations bring sparkle to tables and serving areas -- and they last far longer than jack-o'-lanterns.

How to Make Glittered Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Black-Magic Carved Pumpkins

These puckish pumpkins, with paint-blackened rinds and orange-gold interiors, thumb their carved noses at traditional jack-o'-lanterns.

How to Make Black-Magic Carved Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Cookie-Cutter Pumpkins

Warmly lit hearts, luminous stars, glowing clovers, and twinkling diamonds -- try carving any or all of these shapes onto this year's pumpkin lantern using cookie cutters.

How to Make Cookie-Cutter Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Patch Creatures

As an alternative to carving, be creative with fall vegetables and gourds when decorating your pumpkin patch. Watch our video to learn how.

How to Make Pumpkin Patch Creatures

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Halloween Haunted Village

This project combines the jack-o'-lantern and the haunted house. The eerie result is a glowing pumpkin house suggesting unseen ghosts and monsters -- as unusual as it is frightening.

How to Make a Halloween Haunted Village

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Lace-Patterned Pumpkins

The designs used on these pumpkins, which were carved freehand, mimic the lacelike openwork of 18th-century pierced creamware dishes and turn any pumpkin (especially a pale Lumina) into an intricately patterned lamp.

How to Make Lace-Patterned Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Snake

Assemble a row of pumpkins that mimic the twists of a slithering snake.

How to Make a Pumpkin Snake

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Owl Pumpkins

These adorable owls will have a hoot on your fence this Halloween.

How to Make Owl Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Birdbath Family

Behold, the count and countess of Birdbath, and their three little countlings. They redid this abandoned two-story bath, carpeting it with Spanish moss, dead leaves, and branches. The gourds were carved from the bottom to keep stems intact.

How to Make a Birdbath Family

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Etched Victorian Pumpkins

This sideboard tableau intersperses luminous pumpkins with a decanter of wine, a stand with fruit, and other objects evocative of Edgar Allan Poe and his tales of horror. To render the glowing silhouettes, we used two techniques: The bright candelabrum and goblet are cut through the pumpkins' walls, while the textured quill and skull are pared gently from the outer shells. Pumpkins of different hues, including white Lumina, a green-gray Jarrahdale, and burnt-orange cheese pumpkins, add tonal variety.

How to Make Etched Victorian Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Fluttering Moth

A bell-shaped squash serves as a vertical canvas for a moth-to-flame carving.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Harvested Scenes

A rickety picket fence unites a row of pumpkins in a depiction of a farmer's field.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Caught in the Web

A front door tempts trick-or-treaters with a collection of eerie spiderwebs and a tarantula shining brightly.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Raven's Way

Leaves seem to swirl and tumble in a chilly wind as a raven watches beneath a baleful, moonlit sky. Glowing along a stone wall or presented indoors on a deep mantel, this moody vignette can encompass as many pumpkins as space permits. It's also an opportunity to use fruits of various sizes in the same arrangement. (Keep in mind that smaller pumpkins are harder to work with.) We paired three basketball-style pumpkins with a small, smooth-skinned pie pumpkin.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Vulture's Cage

In this project, a smaller pumpkin is nested inside a larger one to create the look of a vulture trapped in a cage.

How to Make a Vulture's Cage

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Translucent Pumpkins

Halloween custom calls for a fiercely lit, glowering jack-o'-lantern, but you might also consider the more subtle glow of an elegant monogram, playful spirals, or a whimsical harlequin pattern.

How to Make Translucent Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pierced Openwork Pumpkins

Delicate openwork, inspired by eighteenth-century English pierced creamware, turns these pale 'Lumina' pumpkins into ornate decorations.

How to Make Pierced Openwork Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Stained Glass Pumpkins

Soften and alter the stark light of a jack-o'-lantern's candle or bulb, or enhance unusual gourds and squashes by using sheets of colored wax paper to create a stained glass-o'-lantern.

How to Make Stained Glass Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Cachepots

Overflowing with bright blossoms, these chubby-cheeked planters are sure to elicit grins.

How to Make the Pumpkin Cachepots

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Jack-o'-Lanterns Made Tall

A jack-o'-lantern trying to ward off pranksters from ground level will often come up short. Give him a boost -- and a body -- by setting him atop a stack of pumpkins, squashes, or other winter gourds. Use small wood screws to hold the parts in place.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Autumn Planters

When cold weather arrives, gourds, winter squashes, Indian corn, and small pumpkins can fill the planters that once overflowed with flowering annuals. Tuck colorful leaves into any gaps for a great way to capture the spirit of the fall harvest season.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Gourd Bird Shelter

Small birds, such as finches and pine siskins, will appreciate the protection from predators that this feeder offers. Dried gourds can be purchased from gourd farms.

How to Make a Gourd Bird Shelter

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Gourd Garland

John Keats called autumn the season of mellow fruitfulness, a sentiment evoked by this string of warm-colored gourds.

How to Make a Gourd Garland

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Vase

Pumpkins wear many hats this time of year, appearing in pies and soups as well as in centerpieces. Here's another use: Transform one into a colorful homemade vase.

How to Make a Pumpkin Vase

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Flying Place Cards

Set the stage -- and the table -- for Halloween with these strange creatures: half bat, half pumpkin.

How to Make Flying Place Cards

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Lollipop Holder

Silhouetted in an open door, a pumpkin spiked with orange- and chocolate-flavored lollipops resembles a folk-art Sputnik.

How to Make a Pumpkin Lollipop Holder

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Sconces

Transform your pumpkins into glowing light fixtures.

How to Make Pumpkin Sconces

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Lantern

Small sugar pumpkins make delightful lanterns for a Halloween table.

How to Make a Pumpkin Lantern

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Punch Bowl Prop

Fill a pumpkin with dry ice for a smoldering display, or use it to serve punch.

How to Make a Punch Bowl Prop

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Basket

Turn a lopsided pumpkin into a basket for a spooky bouquet.

How to Make a Pumpkin Basket

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Chandeliers

Pumpkins made into temporary light fixtures can spread a charming glow over your autumn celebration or create an eerie but sophisticated welcome for Halloween callers.

How to Make Pumpkin Chandeliers

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Bird Feeder

Treat feathered friends to an autumn delight by turning a pumpkin into a bird feeder.

How to Make a Pumpkin Bird Feeder

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Creepy Candy Containers

Transform a few pumpkins into candy holders with looks that could chill -- they can play a crucial role as keepers of treats.

How to Make Creepy Candy Containers

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Jack-o'-Clock

The base of a Cinderella pumpkin makes a perfect face for a jack-o'-clock.

How to Make a Jack-o'-Clock

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Candy Faces

Create ghoulish Halloween faces with a variety of candy pieces.

How to Make Pumpkin Candy Faces

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Pie Potpourri

Use a pumpkin incense burner to suggest the cozy scent of pie just out of the oven.

How to Make the Pumpkin Pie Potpourri

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Fall's Tureen Topper

Your next jack-o'-lantern may come with a bonus: a one-of-a-kind tureen lid. For a proper fit, measure the diameter of a tureen, and choose an appropriate-size pumpkin with a firm stem. Using a keyhole saw, cut off the top third of the pumpkin, and scrape the interior clean. Cut a small semicircle along the edge to accommodate a ladle. For an added fall accent at the table, arrange a vine or other foliage around the serving bowl's base.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Centerpieces

Pumpkins need not be ghoulish. The deep-twilight hues of Australian heirlooms 'Jarrahdale' and 'Queensland Blue' form a poetic display, but they also serve a practical purpose, offering richly veined cheeses, crudites, and more. Stack them for an extra-elegant effect.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Golden Pumpkin Mantel Display

Because it involves no carving, this elegant but easy-to-create ode to autumn can last from early October until Thanksgiving. Boughs of fall-yellow ginkgo leaves brighten a balanced array of similar-hued 'Nest Egg' and 'Warty Orange Hardhead' gourds, which are augmented with small 'White Ball' and 'Pawnee Orange' gourds. To add subtle sparkle and gleaming warmth, the pumpkins' stems are painted gold, and ocher glass vases and gilded votive candleholders are interspersed throughout.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Graveyard Ghost

Clearly, white can provoke fright. With the help of some tattered cloth, 'Lumina' pumpkins are easily transformed into fearsome ghosts that arise from an ancient graveyard on All Hallows' Eve.

How to Make a Graveyard Ghost

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkins with Marbleized Paper Leaves

The stippled skins of this "One Too Many" pumpkin are adorned with marbleized Florentine-paper leaves and millinery-wire tendrils. 

Because none of the pumpkins in this subtly colored centerpiece are carved, they can last well into the fall, perhaps even until Thanksgiving.

How to Make Pumpkins with Marbleized Paper Leaves

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Pumpkin Vase of Fall Flowers

Make a golden impression right at the front door with a pumpkin overflowing with vivid chrysanthemums, subdued thistles, and seeded eucalyptus, all embellished with branches of Chinese lantern that have been colored gold with floral spray. A few golden pumpkins are strewn amid an array of naturally colorful ones to add even more shimmer and sheen to the welcoming tableau.

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating Ideas

Spray-Painted Mini Table Pumpkins

Blue is not traditionally associated with the season, but highlight it with small touches of gold, as in these spray-painted miniature pumpkins and a place card written in gold ink, and the color can become a happy participant in holiday revels. A block-printed napkin and tablecloth and the marbleized plate add patterned richness, while a mix of mismatched contemporary glassware and classic flatware keep the feeling clean and modern.