Halloween Activity: Pumpkin Carving Ideas 2020
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Pumpkin carving ideas for 2020 make a fun Halloween activity!
Halloween 2020 is quickly approaching- a little over one week away! As we all know, this year is weird and will probably look different for many people. There may not be trick or treating in your neighborhood, and no parties or festivals…which I know, major bummer!
But, we can still have a good time! There are a lot of great, safe alternative ways to celebrate Halloween this year. One of which is one of my favorite traditions- pumpkin carving!
Pumpkin carving is a fantastic stay-at-home activity that you can enjoy with your kids, your significant other, or yourself! Depending on how crazy you want to get with it, pumpkin carving is a fun activity that can be done with most ages and requires minimal set-up. Score!
Side note- do people even say score anymore?
Anyways, pumpkin carving ideas! You can totally free-hand carve your pumpkin if you want or you can use a template. There are tons of free templates on the internet, and I’ve rounded up several neat ones that I’ll be sharing with you today.
And if you don’t want to carve, I also found some super cool pumpkin painting ideas! I’ll include those too. Those are great if you don’t have pumpkin carving equipment or have kids that are too young to carve.
Just for kicks, I’ll also link to a great recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds at the end. I love roasting the pumpkin seeds after carving!
Okay, enough talk- let’s get to the pumpkin carving ideas!
Pumpkin Carving Ideas 2020
First up, we have the templates. My husband and I both used templates to carve our pumpkins. He did Frankenstein, and I did a dinosaur (named Fred).
My husband’s template is from Better Homes and Gardens and can be found here: Frankenstein Carving Stencil.
That same site has 38 more templates you can choose from. Here are my favorites from the collection:
The brontosaurus template that I used is from Pumpkin Pile, and can be found on this link. Just scroll down to the brontosaurus pattern and click to download. You can find all their other patterns from their patterns page.
Another website with some great pumpkin carving ideas is KOA.com. You can download their camping themed pumpkin carving templates for lots of ideas. Even if you aren’t a camping person, these templates are pretty awesome!
And the last website I really like is this one from HGTV: Advanced Halloween Pumpkin-Carving Patterns. As suggested by the name, these are a little more advanced. There’s 92 templates in this gallery, so lots of options!
Okay, so what if you don’t want to carve your pumpkins? No problem! I found some really fun websites for painting or decorating your pumpkin instead of carving it!
fun no pumpkin carving ideas:
Pour Art Pumpkins from Dream a Little Bigger
Abstract Painted Pumpkins from A Subtle Revelry (my 90’s heart loves this! These are small pumpkins which would be perfect for smaller kids, or you could replicate it on bigger pumpkins!)
DIY Donut Pumpkins from Studio DIY
Glitter Pumpkins from The Inspiration Board
Owl Pumpkins from I Heart Crafty Things
So many fun ideas!
You could really make this a fun Halloween event! Get a bunch of pumpkins, supplies, and snacks and spend the afternoon carving or decorating away. You could have a friendly family or socially-distanced neighborhood competition!
As promised, you can find the roasted pumpkin seed recipe that I like from Boulder Locavore: Simple Roasted Pumpkin Seeds.
I hope you enjoy! And if you use one of these pumpkin carving ideas, let me know which one you choose!
xoxo
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Top Halloween Recipes for a Scary Good Time
Halloween Movies to get in the Halloween Spirit
I love this! So many good suggestions and resources. I, in particular, love the wine glass template on your HGTV link. Too funny.
Haha that’s a good one! I was tempted to do the bubbling cauldron from that same link!. But, Fred the dinosaur won out!