Petrifying Painted Pumpkins

Nothing says Halloween like a pumpkin, but not all of us are carvers. Carved pumpkins have such a short shelf life IT's not long before all that hard work heads towards ITs final resting place. Painted pumpkins are fun for all ages, last a lot longer and can be artsy, scary, and cool. We'll show you how you can have the creepiest gourds on the block with Lumiere and Neopaque paints.

Let's get started!

Wipe off your pumpkins with a damp cloth to make sure they are clean.

Take a little time to look at your pumpkin and pick the best side to paint your design on. IT might help to have some different sizes of your inspiration images so you don't have to resize things by hand. IT's better to paint a little higher on the pumpkin because lower designs are hard to see from above.

Using your pencil trace out your design on the pumpkin. If you need to, you can gently erase the design to make changes or put IT on a different side of the pumpkin. Next, do your first coat of any large or background fill colors and let them dry. Repeat coats as needed until you like the smoothness of the color, we only needed 2 coats.

Lastly, paint in your outlines, this will smooth over any rough edges and make the design look more finished.

Let the paint dry for 24 hours.

Tutorial written and photographed by Liz Palmerston and Elizabeth Holdmann