DIY Halloween Pumpkins With Cricut. No-Carve Pumpkin Ideas

Pumpkins are one of the most popular and iconic decorations for Halloween and the Fall season. But carving a pumpkin can be messy and time-consuming, not to mention that some people just don’t enjoy the process. These DIY Halloween pumpkins are perfect if you’re looking for an alternative to traditional pumpkin carving!

How to Make DIY Halloween Pumpkins with Cricut Vinyl

The fall season is the perfect time to start thinking about how you want to decorate your home for Halloween. If you’re like me, my first thought is the front porch since people first see it when they visit our home. These no-carve DIY Halloween pumpkins will be the talk of the block!

Although I’m listing the exact supplies and steps I use, feel free to get creative and use acrylic paint or even hot glue some 3D effects like a witch hat or leaves to your pumpkin to really make it pop.

DIY Halloween Pumpkins with Cricut: Supply List

• Krylon spray paint – I used a flat, chalky color for a softer look. You can always get creative and use metallic or glossy paint. Likewise, you can leave the pumpkin its original color.
• Faux pumpkins
• Permanent vinyl (I’m using Smart Vinyl here)
• Cricut cutting machine
• Weeding tool
• Cricut scraper tool
• Glitter colors of your choice
• Mod Podge
• Foam paintbrush
• Painters tape

To get started, you’re going to want to get some faux pumpkins from your local craft store or dollar store. If you’re doing a whole set, make sure you grab different sizes and pumpkin shapes for an interesting grouping.

Step 1: Paint Your Faux Pumpkins

You’ll want to tape off the stem with painter’s tape to keep it the color it is or to do a glitter stem. Some pumpkin stems are removable, so carefully check your pumpkin’s structure before trying to remove it.

Once you’re ready to paint, you’ll want to use short little bursts with a swooping motion to cover the pumpkin well and ensure you don’t get too much paint in one spot. Start with painting the top, then flip the pumpkin to paint the bottom after the top fully dries.

Step 2: Add the Halloween Designs into Design Space

While your pumpkin dries for about 20 minutes, download your free Halloween SVG cut files for this pumpkin craft. Log in here to the AKC Freebie Vault and find these SVG files with the keyword “pumpkins.” I have a ghost, black cat, and witches hat pattern available. Of course, you can add any design you like!

Load the free Halloween SVG files into Cricut Design Space. If you are new to Cricut, read my tutorial on how to upload an SVG file here!

Step 3: Cut out the Halloween SVG designs

You’ll want to keep the vinyl designs small to fit on your pumpkin better and let them follow the curves and indents on your gourd, so the vinyl lays flat.

Cut your designs with permanent vinyl. You can use removable vinyl, but permanent vinyl will stay better year after year. Next, weed the ghosts, black cats, and little ghosts carefully, making sure the designs are securely stuck to the backing before you add your transfer tape to the front.

Use your scraping tool to burnish the back and press the front of the vinyl to ensure all of the small letters and sparkles attach to the transfer tape. Check out all my Sanity Saving Vinyl Hacks here!

Slowly peel the backing off in a diagonal direction, pushing and rolling the vinyl a bit when pieces of the design do not want to stick to the tape.

Step 4: Apply the vinyl design to your faux pumpkins

Once your backing is off, cut the designs apart so you’re working with a smaller area at a time. Then, place the vinyl cutouts on the pumpkin, pushing the design into the creases so that the design really sticks to the curves of the faux pumpkins.

Then, slowly peel the transfer tape away in a diagonal direction, pushing and rolling the tape to get the designs to stick to the pumpkin.

Continue the process until you have all of your Halloween vinyl designs on the pumpkin. If one of the pieces gets a small bubble or wrinkle, use the weeding tool to gently lift the vinyl, then press it into the contours to smooth it out.

Again, a smaller design (between 1.5″- 2″ each) will work better on the pumpkins. If your pumpkin is larger, you can go a bit bigger, but remember that larger vinyl pieces tend to have a harder time sticky to the surface. Check out my Hocus Pocus large pumpkin here to see how I decorated it with bigger words and images using permanent vinyl.

Step 5: Add glitter to your stem

Finally, use Mod Podge and the paintbrush or a foam paintbrush to cover the pumpkin’s stem. Sprinkle a thin layer of gold glitter on the glue, then tap it to remove the excess. Set aside to dry.

Once the stem is dry, you can use hot glue to attach the stem to the top of the pumpkin if you are able to remove it. If you left the stem on the pumpkin, you’d need to tape off the area carefully before you glue and glitter to keep it off the pumpkin area.

To watch this project step by step, you can visit the full tutorial for these DIY Halloween Pumpkins With Cricut Vinyl.

You can’t beat this easy Halloween craft when decorating for a Halloween party or your home! You may also love this not-so-scary woodland animal faux pumpkin craft! They’d even make a fun and easy pumpkin Halloween idea for an activity for the whole family to do together.

These easy Fall craft ideas even a great kid-friendly, no-carve DIY pumpkin craft that uses Cricut vinyl to make the cutest jack-o-lanterns. If you are looking for more pumpkin ideas to dress up your home this autumn season, you will also love these 3D paper pumpkins!