DIY Decorated Pumpkins | Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas

If you have decorated pumpkins lying around from Halloween, don’t think even think about throwing them out or leaving them in the backyard to rot. Transform those classic fall gourds with festive pumpkin decorating ideas!

Decorated Pumpkins For A Fabulous Holiday Decor

There are a lot of ways to embellish a pumpkin if you observe correct techniques. Remember to display your pumpkin in a cool place. If you leave them out in the sun, your pumpkins will rot. If you want to keep these Thanksgiving decor around much longer, or if you want to reuse them every year, you can buy foam pumpkins from craft stores. Here’s a tip: you can wait til after Halloween to buy since they are often on clearance!! Yay!!!

What You’ll Need:

• Pumpkin – dent, spot-free and firm all around. If your gourd has areas with soft spots, it’s probably going to rot
• Some paint – you can choose from pastel colors, warm Autumn colors, or any color that suits your mood/personality
• paint brushes
• embellishments and other craft room scraps

Prepare Your Pumpkin:

It is important that you clean your pumpkin before using it to any project. You can wash your pumpkin with cool water or just wipe it with a wet napkin.

Once your pumpkin is completely dry, start painting your pumpkin. Use a base coat to ensure a good surface to paint on top of, like a primer. The stem would be perfect in metallic paint because metallic paint can go with variety designs.

Tip: The gourd is naturally moist when you touch it, so a water-based paint will not stick or come to a full cure. I suggest you use an acrylic or even a spray paint. If you still think or plan to cook the pumpkin afterward, I recommend using the acrylic since the chemicals will not leach into the pumpkin itself.

How To Make An Embellish-Styled Pumpkin:

Adding beautiful embellishment on your pumpkin is the easiest way to spruce it up. In this beautiful craft you’ll need a pastel color paint of your choice, glue, and studs.

Step 1: Paint Your Pumpkins

Your pumpkin is already painted with a base coat. All you just have to do is to top it with your choice of pastel color paint.

Step 2: Prepare Your Embellishments

Style and customize your pumpkin with beautiful embellishment depending on your theme or design.

Step 3: Decorate And Style

Now, here comes my favorite part of this DIY Thanksgiving pumpkin project: decorating and styling. After painting your pumpkin (of course, wait for it to dry first) you can start decorating it with embellishments! Don’t forget to get creative with the studs arrangement and once you’re done jazzing it up, you’re now ready to position it anywhere you want!

How To Make A Thumb-Tacked Pumpkin:

If you are on a budget, and don’t have embellishments around, you can also make use of thumbtacks to decorate your pumpkin!

Step 1: Trace Your Design

On your already painted pumpkin, use a pencil to trace the word you want to design on your pumpkin. On this decorated pumpkin idea that’s the word “JOY”. “Joy” is what Thanksgiving is all about! The abundance of the season plus the beauty it brings definitely awakens every hidden joy there is. But it can be anything you want though!

Step 2: Design Using The Thumbtacks

Push in thumbtacks to flesh out the design. Do you know where to put it once your done with it? It can be in your mantle, your Thanksgiving table, a centerpiece for your decor, or anywhere you want! Unlimited possibilities makes it super perfect!

Now that Halloween is over, replace those fake cobwebs with #Thanksgiving decor! https://t.co/xC3isBj5Sd pic.twitter.com/U3I7vfO1Al

— DIY Projects (@DIYProjectsCom) November 2, 2016

How To Make A Mr. Tuxedo Turkey:

And now, this adorable design that is such a darling, Mr. Tuxedo Turkey will definitely be a crowd favorite. You will need two pumpkins for this, a large one for the body and a smaller one for the head (painted in metallic paint), black paint, scrap of lace for the bow tie, and felt and fabric scraps for the eyes.

Step 1: Create The Tux

First, cut off the stem of the top pumpkin as close to the top as you can. Next, you need to paint the front white for the tux. Mask off the white with masking tape and then paint the rest of the pumpkin black for his dapper jacket.

Step 2: Stick On The Head

Simply stick your smaller pumpkin on the top of your large pumpkin. Then, add some style to the body. This one has bow tie and stud that looks like the tuxedo buttons.

Step 3: Create The Eyes

Use felt and fabric scraps to create the eyes. Cut them in three different sizes and in oval shapes. Stick them together and just glue them on the pumpkin.

Step 3: Create The Nose

Cut a small piece of orange cloth or felt and fold it in a triangle for the nose. TA-DA! You have now made Mr. Tuxedo Turkey! (Hi there!)

How To Make A Laced Golden Pumpkin:

This DIY Thanksgiving Pumpkin idea is truly fashionable and complements Mr. Tuxedo Turkey really well! You’ll need a pumpkin painted in metallic paint, scrap of lace, scissors, and glue.

Step 1: Cut Out The Lace

Cut out some lace for the design, don’t worry about the shapes!

Step 2: Glue The Lace

Glue the lace on your metallic-gold painted pumpkin. And that’s it! You now have a laced golden pumpkin.

How To Make A DIY Chalkboard Pumpkin:

This is a great way to make memories especially during Thanksgiving dinner. With this DIY Thanksgiving pumpkin decor idea, your guests can sign it and leave some memorable notes. All you need to do is spray some chalkboard paint on it. You need about 1-3 coats and that covers it quite well. Let it dry, and you have your DIY Chalkboard pumpkin made. Easy, huh?

Want to see this decorated pumpkins in action? You can watch the full tutorial of Ann Le {Anneorshine} below:

There you go, crafters! Look how cute these decorated pumpkins! These are certainly perfect home decor for Thanksgiving. These easy, do-it-yourself decorations would make a perfect Thanksgiving centerpiece!

What’s your favorite DIY Thanksgiving pumpkin decoration? We’re excited to know! Let us know in the comments section below.

Up Next: 15 DIY Ways To Decorate Your Home With Pumpkins This Fall

Stay connected with us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram!

Editor’s Note – This post was originally published on November 2016 updated for quality and relevancy.